EXCLUSIVE
(News script published here are subject to copyright)
Minister Incharge of public health engineering (PHE) Marcuise N Marak informed that the power crisis partially hit the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) implementation in Meghalaya.
Talking to reporters in Shillong, Marak said, the district such as East Jaintia hills, East Khasi Hills and West Jaintia Hills are the lowest performing districts in the state as the projects in these districts need electricity to pump water.
“The districts that are not connected as per the programme East Jaintia hills, East Khasi Hills and West Jaintia Hills. Most of the projects this side are boring and for boring one has to get connected to the electricity, so the problem lies with the electricity,” Marak said.
Further, he informed, “We are facing power shortages since monsoon has come hopefully we will be able to get power connection to all the pumps that are installed. Power crisis in the state has partially hit JJM implementation in the state.”
Meghalaya now has 51.90 percent functional household tap connections under Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) .
The PHE Minister said that they we have already applied to the MeECL and in some of the projects, money have been deposited to the MeECL but till date power is not connected.
“I have taken up this issue with the power Minister, written a DO letter personally highlighting the projects where we have deposited money for the power connection. Power Minister has informed me back that he has asked the department the official connection,” the Minister said.
“Once that is done the number of household connection in terms of JJM will be fast implemented as only the water has to be pumped, pipes are laid,” he added.
The dashboard of JJM states the lowest performing District in the state is East Jaintia Hills which records 37.95 percent implementation. Followed by East Khasi Hills which was slightly better as it stands at 38.93 percent and the percentage of West Jaintia Hills according to the JJM dashboard stands at 41.64.
The performance of West Garo Hills is also not satisfactory as it stand 49.31 percent.
According to the JJM dashboard, East Garo Hills (75.46%) is considered at the best performing district in terms of JJM implementation.
The performance of South West Garo Hills is 73.48 percent.
