Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, Jan 15: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) and other urban local bodies (ULBs) of the state Thursday inked an agreement with the public health engineering department (PHEO) to bring water supply services under the ambit of the ULBs and strengthen coordination between the water supply department and the civic bodies.
The memorandum of understanding (MoU) is aimed at enhancing household coverage of water connections from the existing 35 per cent to 100 per cent in the state.
BMC municipal commissioner Krishan Kumar inked the MoU on service-level benchmark with PHEO superintendent engineer (Bhubaneswar circle) Chittaranjan Jena at the BMC office Thursday.
Initially, confusion prevailed as many corporators and officials thought that the water supply department had been merged with the ULBs. However, Krishan Kumar clarified that both the parties would engage a nodal officer to strengthen coordination between the particular ULB and PHEO to bring essential services under one platform.
“The services would be rendered by PHEO in close coordination with ULBs,” he said, adding that a state-owned entity would be roped in by the government to collect water taxes and bring new houses with water connections under the tax net.
“Water supply coverage is really poor in Bhubaneswar and a lot of hard work is required to improve it,” he said. Residents can approach either PHEO or BMC to get new water connections, he said.
Jena said no staff of PHEO would be transferred to BMC as the MoU was aimed at giving a boost to civic services including water supply services. According to the agreement, areas that require new water connections will have to get BMC council approval and then the proposal would be sent to PHEO to do so jointly with BMC. “If any new area in the city wants water connections, BMC would have to prepare a blueprint and then the plan would be implemented with PHEO,” an official said.
The state’s household coverage of water connections is very poor at 35 per cent. This would be increased to 37 per cent in 2015-16.