Hyderabad: The state government will undertake a door-to-door survey of Mission Bhagiratha in rural areas across the state from next week to ascertain the genuineness of the BRS government's claims on providing tap connections to 100 per cent households since 2016. The Centre had denied grants to Telangana for drinking water schemes for the past seven years due to those lofty claims.
During a recent review meeting that was chaired by Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy, it was found that the ground reality was different and Mission Bhagiratha water was yet to reach many habitations and households.
The Congress government wants to seek Rs 14,000 crore grant from the Centre by submitting a factual report on Mission Bhagiratha after the survey.
Following Reddy’s directions, chief secretary A. Santhi Kumari conducted a review meeting on Thursday and directed all district collectors to make arrangements for taking up the door-to-door survey. Officials and staff of panchayat raj and rural development departments will be involved in the survey, which has to be completed in three weeks.
Around 120 Mission Bhagiratha officials, MPDOs, mandal panchayat officers, AEs of panchayat raj and Mission Bhagiratha were specially trained for conducting the survey. Each staff member involved in the survey has to cover 25 households every day.
The Centre had sanctioned Rs 2,000 crore per year to states under Jal Jeevan Mission to supply drinking water to every household through tap connection. However, Telangana was denied the funds. The state government has lost nearly Rs 14,000 crore central grants in the last seven years.
Meanwhile, Mission Bhagiratha is encountering frequent problems due to poor quality of works, while pipeline bursts have become commonplace. The state government is incurring huge expenditure to repair pipelines. Although the pipelines have reached villages, individual tap connections were not given. There were also many complaints against defunct pipelines and taps.
It may be noted that the BRS government had spent nearly Rs 36,000 crore on Mission Bhagiratha. Of this, Rs 32,652 crore was mobilised as loans from commercial banks against high interest rates. Repayment of loans is causing a huge financial burden on the state government.
The government has 12 years to repay the amount in 48 installments. Its main lenders were HUDCO, which extended Rs 4,740 crore loan, Nabard Rs 4,792 crore and the then Andhra Bank (now Union Bank of India) consortium Rs 7,135 crore.
