Chief Secretary, Dr Arun Kumar Mehta today impressed upon the Chief Engineers of the Jal Shakti Department to implement the objectives of Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) here in J&K within the given deadline.

He directed the executing agencies to allot all the tendered works by 26th of this month without any fail.

These directions were passed by him to the officers of the Mission during a review meeting held today at Civil Secretariat here.

The meeting was attended by Principal Secretary, Jal Shakti Department, Ashok Parmar; Mission Director, JJM, Dr Syed Abid Rasheed Shah, Chief Engineers, and other officers of the Jal Shakti Department.

All outside officers participated in the meeting through video conferencing from their respective headquarters.

On the outset of the meeting the CS asked the officers about the progress of the mission and asked them to meet their deadlines without any fail. He asked them to allot all the tendered out works till 26th of this month and expedite the completion of works at the earliest.

Dr Mehta also impressed upon the officers to look into the utilization of all the options for better utilization of time and resources. He advised them to make the work on different components go hand in hand by better coordination and monitoring by the officials.

He urged the officers of the mission to develop the internal monitoring mechanism for its effective implementation. He asked them to create a dashboard that is updated on daily basis to check for the progress and quality of work of the mission. He also stressed on third party evaluation of the works besides greater role for PRIs in monitoring process.

The Chief Secretary also impressed upon the officers to maintain highest standards in completing works under this national mission. He cautioned them that there is no scope for under performance and each of the officer down to the Junior Engineer should own this mission and perform up to mark. He asked them that any sort of underperformance in this vital sector would be viewed seriously and action as per law taken against the underachievers.

The meeting was informed that the mission is under implementation from 2019 and  institutions like schools, Anganwadi centres and health institutions has been provided piped water under this mission. Every household in gram panchayat is to be covered by tap connection under the mission.

 Elucidating further it was said that as per type of scheme and terrain four categories of schemes had been formulated. These include gravity and lift type schemes in hilly areas and gravity and lift type schemes in plain areas.

The meeting was apprised that in order to ehance the transparency and monitoring of the works some 11 NGOs have been empanelled as Implementation Support Agencies (ISAs). These ISAs are going to work across 1638 villages and help in capacity building of Gram panchayats, Pani Samities and perform other support activities as well.

In order to enhance the capacity of the engineering staff the department has sent 145 engineers for attending training programmes both through online/offline mode besides conducting training for the field staff in nearby ITIs in consultation with the Skill Development Department, as was disclosed in the meeting.