Water to all houses by Dec ’18 under AMRUT

LUCKNOW: In a bid to make up the loss of work due to civic elections last month, urban development department has advanced the deadline for providing water supply connections to all households under AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation & Urban Transformation) Yojna by one year — from December 2019 to December 2018.
The ambitious scheme started by Centre in 2015 to provide adequate infrastructure in cities will end in 2019, so the department is left with just two years to meet targets of ‘water supply and sewer connections to all’ under AMRUT.The department recently held a meeting to reset its targets and utilise the funds received of late.
Around 61 UP cities having population of over one lakh have been chosen for ‘water supply & sewer connections to all’. While the scheme targets to give connections to over 10 lakh people who couldn’t benefit from the Centre’s earlier JNNURM scheme, it also aims to give water and sewer connections to slum dwellers. Special secretary, urban development department and AMRUT director in UP, Anil Kumar Singh said, “We realised that many works initiated under AMRUT got late because of polls, so we held a meeting recently to assess remaining work and the speed. We decided that while the scheme gives time till 2019, we will try and give tap water connections to all households a year before, by December 2018.” For sewer connections, cities need to have a functional sewage treatment plant (STP) first.
AMRUT also provides funds for setting up STPs. An official said, “Our priority is to first build STP in every city. Without it, giving sewer connections is futile. This will take about two years. So, while we will give tap water connections to all by December 2018, sewer connections may take one more year.” Under AMRUT, Centre had to disburse around Rs 10,000 crore to UP, of which it has already given Rs 500 crore. The remaining fund will flow in installments over next two years.