HT Bureau
GUWAHATI, March 21: PHED minister Jayanta Mallabaruah on Tuesday held a meeting with the tea garden managements and other stakeholders of the tea gardens of the state regarding successful implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission and Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) at Srimanta Sankaradeva International Auditorium, Guwahati.
Related Posts:
The meeting was also attended by the MLAs who have tea gardens falling under their respective constituencies.
Addressing the gathering, minister Baruah urged the tea garden management to display a supportive hand in successfully implementing the Jal Jeevan Mission schemes & Swachh Bharat Mission across all tea gardens of Assam.
The minister spoke at length about the benefits of clean drinking water and public hygiene and also presented the current status of JJM across all tea gardens which is comparatively better than the state average. He also highlighted the fact that this is the biggest water supply infrastructure expenditure in tea gardens ever since independence with a whopping amount of Rs 1,700 crore which will cover 800 tea gardens of Assam.
He further added that clean and safe drinking water and achieving ODF plus status in sanitation will upgrade the livelihood of the tea garden workers helping them lead a disease free life.
The minister also urged the tea garden organisations and unions to monitor the work of the schemes taken under JJM and also ensure that clean drinking water is made available to the last mile. He reiterated, “Since, the post implementation phase of these schemes are mostly self sustainable through the water users committee, but in tea gardens the responsibility of operation and maintenance has to be taken up by tea garden management.”
Apart from that he also appealed to the management to look after the local issues like availability of land.
Noteworthy is that, a total number of 2.75 lakh FHTCs has been installed till now in all tea gardens which makes it 63% coverage. A total number of 1,603 water supply schemes will be functional in 803 tea gardens across Assam once completed.
The meeting was attended by minister Sanjoy Kishan, minister Jogen Mohan, a number of MLAs, senior officers of the department and representatives from tea organisations.
