Soon, get online status of hand pumps in rural areas on your phone
LUCKNOW: For the first time, the panchayati raj department in the state is preparing a database of individual hand pumps in its effort to provide adequate potable waters to villagers by ensuring their timely maintenance and repair.
The hand pumps are installed mostly under the MLA/MLC’s quota.
“The department is collecting village-wise data clearly stating status on whether the hand pump is in the working condition or it needs repair, whether it has been re-bored or not so that the desired and early action can be taken accordingly,” said a senior panchayati raj official dealing with the issue.
“Once all the data is collected and fed, people will be able to see the status of any hand pump anywhere in rural areas sitting anywhere in the country on their laptop or smartphone,” he said.
The department has already fed the data on individual status of some 20 lakh of the 28 lakh hand pumps whose data has been received. The data will then be updated on the day-to-day basis for correct status of all the hand pumps.
“Earlier, we did not have any authentic data because of which thousands of hand pumps remained out of work or unbored depriving villagers of water despite their being a hand pump in their locality. But an online feeding of the data and mandatory day-to-day updating the status will deal with this situation,” the official said.
The India Mark, human-powered pumps designed to lift water from a depth of 50 meter or less, are installed by the Jal Nagam but the responsibility of maintaining the same in rural areas rests with the panchayati raj department.
According to Jal Nigam, chief engineer (rural), JP Shukla there were around 29 lakh India Mark-II hand pumps in UP.
MLAs and MLCs keep on demanding quota of these pumps and the state government obliges them from time to time.
“The government had fixed a quota of 100 hand pumps per MLA/MLC in 2017-18 and all of the lawmakers have used their quota,” Shukla said, adding “Each hand pump cost Rs 50,000.”
According to sources, the demand for the India Mark hand pumps come mostly from waterscared districts under Agra and Mirzapur divisions apart from the whole Bundelkhand.