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Assam minister for public health engineering and cooperation departments Rihon Daimari reviewed the progress of works of various schemes and flagship programmes in Sonitpur.

He reviewed the schemes and programmes being implemented by the District Water and Sanitation Committee under the Public Health Engineering department and also reviewed the works of the Cooperation department in a meeting held at the conference hall of the deputy commissioner’s office in Tezpur on Monday evening.

The meeting, which was held in the presence of deputy commissioner Narsing Pawar and district development commissioner Farouk Alam, ACS discussed the progress of various schemes being implemented by the DWSC such as SBM (Gramin), PWSS, Gobar-Dhan, and IEC activities and Gram Sabhas carried out in the district.

Speaking at the meeting, the minister laid stress on the need to provide drinking water connections to all households by 2024 as a part of the Government of India’s goal of ‘Har Ghar Nal ka Jal’ under the Ministry of Jal Shakti.

Moreover, he also laid importance on the need for water testing and asked the officials to ensure that quality of drinking water provided is maintained throughout.

He also directed the officials to complete all incomplete schemes at the earliest and switch to solar power source for the various projects being run by the department.

He directed the departmental officials to ensure proper use and maintenance of the community toilets built at various locations across the district.

He also instructed the officials present to ensure complete ban on the use of plastic and arrange for an alternative for the vendors and step up IEC activities in the field level on the need for water conservation and maintaining drinking water quality.

Reviewing the activities being done by the Cooperation department, the Minister asked the department officials to stress on business diversification and promote the growth of cooperative societies and popularize various loan schemes and subsidies given by the state government, establish market linkage and arrange workshops and exposure visits for beneficiaries.

Executive engineer PHE Division I, Abdur Rahim, in charge executive engineer PHE Division II, Jiten Deka, officials of the Cooperation and PHE departments, were present in the meeting.