Once struggling for potable water, Uttar Pradesh's Shahjahanpur now tops country in tap connections

From being a district where villagers were forced to trek miles to fetch potable water to topping the country in providing water connections Uttar Pradeshs Shahjahanpur has come a long wayWith concerted efforts of authorities and support of local population 88823 houses till October have got clean drinking water through installation of taps under Jal Jeevan MissionWith 28653 taps installed in October alone the district has secured first place in the country in providing tap water connections under the central government projectEarlier villagers used to often complain that hand pumps were installed at far off places and most hand pumps were nonfunctionalMoreover about 150 people were dependent on a single pump Despite being surrounded by five rivers Ganga Ram Ganga Bahubal Khannaut and Gaara people in the district were deprived of potable waterTalking to PTI District Magistrate Umesh Pratap Singh said he found villagers waiting in long queues near hand pumps after which he convened a meeting with Jal Jeevan Mission officials to address the issueNeha Shukla of Sujatpur village who has benefitted from the initiative told PTI that household chores used to begin only after her father fetched water from a far off placeAlso Read Uttar Pradesh 29 cows found dead in MathuraNow with the scheme introduced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi we have got a tap in our house and we are getting pure water she saidBholu Tripathi from the same village said they were getting dirty water earlier Jal Jeevans Jal Sakhi tested the water and found it to be polluted Later when District Magistrate Singh came on a visit we complained about it and after a few days every house in our village got tap connectionSunhari Devi of Rudhauli village said her aunt is disabled and could not walk to fetch waterNow a tap has been installed in the house itself and she can easily do all the work she saidVikas Gupta from Hathoda village said people are drinking pure water because of installation of water tanksThe water problem in my village has ended he saidThe district administration officials said 25 water tanks were built in 2019 and now the number has shot up to 103 places in rural areas because of which they are able to provide direct connections to homesOur target is to build water tanks at 1033 places in the district Land is available at 1026 places Work pertaining to build 650 tanks will start soon the district magistrate said adding 350 water tanks are nearing completionWe are giving pure water adding chlorine to the water because of which bacteria and viruses get killed Besides two women have been trained in each village and they have been tasked with maintaining the water purity by conducting tests regularly They also send test reports to the government Singh saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever