Rs 1,300 crore for drinking water in rural areas

BHUBANESWAR: The Thirteenth Finance Commission has given a grant of over Rs 1,300 crore for operation and maintenance of the drinking water supply system in rural areas.

Scarcity of drinking water in rural areas is becoming a major problem of the State as natural sources of water are drying up due to several factors and groundwater table is gradually shrinking. The problem is acute in tribal areas.

Apart from installing hand pumps, the government is laying maximum emphasis on village pipe water projects.

The hand pumps and pipe water projects are now directly managed by the gram panchayats.

Since panchayats have limited resources and sources of income are a few, the operation and maintenance of these projects will be met out of the funds provided by the TFC.

However, the gram panchayats will take over the operation and maintenance of the drinking water projects after due physical verification and inventory by the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation (RWSS) wing of the Rural Development Department.

The gram panchayats will utilise the funds for procurement of spare parts, payment of wages of self-employed mechanics, payment of electricity charges of pipe water supply (PWS) projects and expenditure towards deployment of mobile vans for repair of PWS.

The 13th Finance Commission has recommended allocation of funds to the panchayati raj institutions under three heads. A general basic grant to the tune of Rs 828.89 crore will be allotted to the districts over a period of five years from 2010-11.

Besides, a general performance grant of Rs 466 crore has also been earmarked for the rural local bodies.

Population of each panchayat is the criterion for distribution of general basic grant.

Panchayats with less than 5,000 population will receive a grant of Rs 1.75 lakh while it is Rs 1.92 for GPs having more than 5,000 but less than 7,500 population.

Panchayats with more than 7,500 but less than 10,000 population will get Rs 2.08 lakh and Rs 2.15 lakh for GPs having more than 10,000 population.