Statesman News Service
MALDA, Jan. 16: The minister of state for public health engineering (PHE) Mr Anwarul Haque has asked the officials concerned particularly zilla parishad officials to submit an utilisation certificate immediately of funds allotted by the Centre for ‘Mini Pipe Water Supply Scheme’(MPWSS) since 2002-03.
Yesterday, Mr Haque reviewed the allotted funds’ position and its utilisation certificates received by the Centre and interacted with the officials of four districts in Malda. He warned the four district officials of Malda, Murshiadabad and North and South Dinajpur that the Centre would not allot fresh funds if they failed to submit a utilisation certificate by March. The minister of state also pointed out that in 2002-03 and 2005-06 more than Rs 3151.03 lakh had been allotted to West Bengal. Out of this, only 30.55 per cent of total funds allotted had been utilised and papers for it were submitted to the Centre. The minister was upset when the officials concerned informed him that the funds had been utilised but the zilla parishad officials could not submit its utilisation certificate on time. Despite lack of utilisation certificates, the Centre had released Rs 1,464.42 lakh in 2006-07 for MPWSS in this state. It was also reported that no utilisation certificates were sent to authorities on time.
In 2007-08, Rs 4,780 lakh was released for rural water supply programme and the officials found that only Rs 170 lakh was utilised, which is only 3.62 per cent of the total funds allotted. It was then that the minister of state for PHE Mr Haque suggested a revised plan for utilising funds under Centre's Sajal Dhara project. According to him, twenty per cent of total funds allotted for drinking water supply scheme will be utilised for Sajal Dhara. Under Sajal Dhara scheme which is a mini drinking water project, the Centre will contribute 90 per cent and 10 per cent will be coming from community contribution. But here too some problems have come up. According to PHE's executive engineer, Mr Swapan Maitra, the Sajal Dhara project is being affected due to lack of community contribution in several districts.
“We have made some small model projects for its implementation. Zilla parishad officials can select any model to provide drinking water to groups of 400 to 1200 people in a particular village. The zilla parishad will have to submit the scheme to PHE for vetting before seeking fund for its implementation”, said Mr Swapan Maitra. “Such small drinking water schemes will be implemented on the basis of underground water sources where the area is free from arsenic and florid contamination”, Mr Maitra added.
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