of 4,00,000 during the year 2000, and is estimated to cost four crores.

The greater Shillong water supply scheme has been recently accepted by the planning commission in principle and is proposed to be financed out of L. I. C. loans or from major banks.

As the above major scheme is likely to take a few years to complete, an interim scheme costing Rs. 6.00 lakhs has been taken up by the Government of Meghalaya to relieve the acute scarcity of water to Nongthymmai areas of Shillong. Sewerage

There are no sewerage schemes in Meghalaya so far. There is a proposal for conversion of dry latrines to septic tank latrines on a phased basis and to do away with the problems of scavengers.

Even though Meghalaya is hardly one year old the State has taken a lead in respect of Rural Water Supply Schemes for the whole of North Eastern India, which is mainly due to the far sighted policy and the

encouragement received from the Meghalay a Government, and the efforts of the officers in the fields who spared no efforts to make the programme a success.

So far only about 15% of the total population of Meghalaya in rural areas has been covered with piped water supply. Excluding urban areas like Shillong and Jowai and the rest 75% is still without any piped water supply schemes. This is a very insignificant achievement compared with some of the western countries like the U. K. and U. S. A. where 95% of the total population has been provided with piped water supply schemes with metered household connections and no street taps. Every citizen pays taxes for the repayment of loans taken for the capital cost and maintenance charges of the scheme. Unless more and more funds are provided by the Planning Commission for the rural water supply schemes the election manifesto of the Cong ress (R) during the last successive election s regarding rural water supply scheme will only remain a paper promise.

EXPORT

-JAWAHAR LAL NEHRU.

NATION!

THE

Status of Urban Water Supply & Sewerage in Madhya Pradesh

of

The present enlarged state of Madhya Pradesh came into being on 1st November 1956 by merging erstwhile States Madhya Pradesh, Madhya Bharat, Vindhya Pradesh and Bhopal. At present Madhya Pradesh is the largest State of the Indian Union having an area of 4,43,452 Sq. Kilometres and total population of 4,16,50,684 (1971 census) spread over 43 districts. The total number of Municipal and other towns in the State is 248 having an urban population of 67,70,323.

In the year 1956, there were 42 water works in the State having a production capacity of 49.89 M. G. D.

National water supply and sanitation programme was introduced during the first five year plan. Though the first five year plan started in the year 1951-52, the national water supply and sanitation programme was initiated only at the fag end of this plan i. c. in the year 1954-55.

During the last three plans, 34 more water works with a production capacity of 65.11 M. G D. have been added, thus increasing the number of water works to 76 with a production capacity of 115.00 M. G. D.

Present Position

The fourth five year plan started from April 1969 and two years of this plan are already over. During the last 2 years of the fourth plan, two more water works have been added.

At present there are 78 water works in the State having a total capacity of 118.78 M. G. D. Out of this 2 are for large in-dustrial establishments (13.30 M. G. D.) and remaining 76 (105.48 M. G. D.) are serving 74 Municipal towns having a population of 44.94 lakhs (1971 census).

In addition to above, work is in hand *for improvements to 17 existing water

completion of improvements to 17 existing water works and construction of new water works at 18 places which are carry over works of the previous years.

The present policy of the Government is to take up urban water supply schemes on the basis of 70% loan and 30% grant in case of towns having population above 20,000 (1961 census) and 50% loan and 50% grant in case of towns having popul ation below 20,000 (1961 census). However considering the allotment during the fourth plan it was found that water supply schemes can be taken up only in a few towns. In order to include more towns in this programme, the State Government have approached the Life Insurance Corporation of India for the grant of loan to Municipal Councils and the Government would give grant as per the pattern explained above. The L. I. C. have agreed to give a loan of

100

67.17

100.87

Rs. 6.00 crores for this purpose. This has enabled the Government to include more water supply schemes in the fourth plan. Accordingly it is proposed to provide for improvements to 8 existing water works and 45 new water supply schemes concerning 46 towns having a population of 5.18 lakhs (1971 census).

The Task Ahead

Urban population of Madhya Pradesh has touched the figure of 67-70 lakhs (1971 census) spread over 248 towns. Out of this there are 20 such places i. e. canton ments, industrial establishments, collieries etc. which have their own water supply arrangements and these cover a population of 5,80 lakhs. Out of the remaining, 74 towns are provided with water supply arrangements and 18 more are likely to be covered shortly. This covers a population of 48.64 lakhs (44.94 + 3.70). In addition 46 towns are proposed in the fourth plan for providing water supply arrangements. These will cover a popul. ation of 5. 18 lakhs.

Considering the above statistics, there are still 90 towns having a population of 8.14 lakhs which remain to be provided with organised water supply system. Out of these 3 towns are having population above 20,000, 25 towns above 10,000 & remaining 62 are having population below 10,000. Probable cost of providing water supply arrangements for these towns would be Rs. 10,00 crores. In addition there are 27 existing water works in the State which need improvements. It is estimated that these improvement schemes would need about Rs. 22.00 crores.

Madhya Pradesh is a problematic state as for as source for drinking water supply is concerned. Except in certain areas of Narmada & Chambal valleys, the tube wells are not successful though deep bores yield small quantities of water. Ground water resources which are economical are inadequate unlike some of the states where ground water resources are ample. Surface water has to be tapped in most of the cases. There are only a few perrenial rivers and

most of the rivers and streams dry up in summer. With With the result, impounding reservoirs have to be provided which make the schemes costly. Moreover, discharge observation records of rivers in the State are not available. It is necessary to observe discharge and behaviour of the river over a number of years before it could be adopted as source of water supply.

Inspite of the above problems, quite a good work has been done in Madhya Pradesh for providing water supply arrangements in towns within the available funds for the purpose. However, quite a lot remains to be done in this largest state of the union. Efforts are being made to take loan from the L. I. C. to augment the plan funds so that more water supply schemes could be included in the plan and safe water could be made available to majority of the urban population in the minimum possible

time.

Most Towns In Rajasthan
Get Water

All towns in Rajasthan except nine, have been covered by drinking water-supply schemes. The remaining areas will be covered during the Fourth Plan.

Schemes to supply piped water to 299 villages have been completed. By the year. end, 35 more schemes will be completed.

To alleviate the suffering of the people of Bikaner, Churu, Jodhpur, Nagaur, Jaisalmer, Barmer and Jalore districts, the Ministry of Agriculture has sanctioned a project for constructing 250 tube-wells. The estimated cost of the project is Rs. 5 crores. Though the scheme is meant for irrigation, it has been decided to utilise tube wells having a discharge of less than 20,000 gallons per hour for the supply of drinking water.