Chhattisgarh Deputy Chief Minister Arun Sao said in the assembly on Tuesday that the previous Congress government denied the data about domestic tap water connections. While the official portal indicated that 36 lakh houses had water supply till December 2023, only 21 million had actually received it, he said.
Sao was answering a question raised by former Chief Minister and Congress MLA from Patan, Bhupesh Baghel on the slow implementation of the Water Life Mission in the state during the BJP rule since December 2023.
Bagel said that the BJP government has failed to meet its target of water supply to 49.98 lakh houses. “In 2022-2023 and 2023-2024, during our rules, we allocated Rs 4,200 crore and Rs 5,374 crore respectively, and after the arrival of your double-engine government, the budget came down to Rs 3,500 crore. When you were not able to meet your target, why did the budget come down?”
Sao alleged that during Bagel’s tenure, the data of the Water Life Mission was shown to get water supply to 1.5 million additional houses in Chhattisgarh. “The Government of India has an IMIS portal, where data about the work done on tap water connection is to be uploaded. To show the progress of work by December 2023, it was shown that 36 lakh houses had received tap water connection, but no verification was made to find out whether these houses were found or not. Any water was provided.
In response to SAO, Bagel said, “You say that 21 lakh houses got water supply by December 2023. According to your answer, in these 20 months, you provided water supply to only 10 lakh houses, the Triple-Inan Sarkar claims that it is working fast. Now the question is whether the water supply has been received in these 10 lakh houses or this data is wrong.”
The issue led a fractus in the assembly, in which Congress MLAs said that the government scheme has not been implemented properly. Congress MLAs staged a walkout when the SAO did not answer the question how many houses had received water supply till this year.
Allotment (T) Rural Development.
