Mangalore, Sep 16: Taking serious note of the fact that drinking water available to the population dwelling in over 5,000 villages in the State are contaminated by hazardous elements like nitrate, flouride and arsenic, the government at the state is all set to install 1,000 water purification units in villages by end of this fiscal year.
Speaking about the same Minister for Rural Development and Panchayat Raj H K Patil on Monday said that the project named as 'Any Time Water' has been implemented in Gadag successfully by two NGOs, where one litre pure drinking water is being provided to people at 10 paisa.
Phases
The ambitious project of catering to the drinking water demands of rural population will be implemented in phases and the said 1,000 purification units will be installed in a year. The villages for the implementation of the project will be selected on priority basis.
"The units will be set up by the Gram Panchayat at an estimated cost of Rs 10 lakh per unit, in case of building a new structure. The cost will come down to Rs 5 lakh if the unit is installed in existing building. Tenders have been floated for setting up of the units. The water will be provided to the consumers at Rs 1 per litre," he said.
Other programmes
The government has envisaged a 15 point programme. Water purification programme being one of the programmes in the list, toilets to every house, roads in rural areas, building open air theatre, opening computer centres in backward community colonies, workshops for skilled labourers etc are some of the other programmes.
Rejuvenation of lakes
The department plans to take up rejuvenation of 12,000 lakes under the 15 point programmes. The Minister said that there are 18,000 dried lakes in the State, of which 12,000 lakes would be rejuvenated. The Government intends to rejuvenate at least 6,000 lakes this year.
GP electricity bills
To a query on the issue of exorbitant pending electricity bills of panchayats state-wide, the Minister said that the RDPR has proposed to form a committee comprising of ESCOM, KPTCL and panchayat raj officials, to assess the due amount. The RDPR does not agree with the statistics on pending bills placed by the ESCOMs, he said.
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