Central team visits Punjab

With various areas of Punjab having poor quality of ground water, the Union government has stressed on the need to find out possibilities to install solar-based small Reverse Osmosis (RO) plants in small pockets, habitats and schools.
A high-level expert team from Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (MDWS), lead by Deputy Advisor to MDWS G Subhramanian and Senior Consultant G R Zarger, today visited the district, an official spokesman said here.
Deputy Commissioner Jaskiran Singh gave a detailed presentation to the team about ground realities of water logged areas.
"The team emphasised on the need to find out possibilities to install solar-based small Reverse Osmosis (RO) plants in small pockets, habitats and schools," the spokesman said.

They also talked about bio-degradable and community toilets for the rural areas of water-logged districts.
The team started its tour from Muktsar district and would also visit Fazilka and Ferozpur districts for giving its recommendations to the cenre for "sustainable and suitable drinking water and sanitation projects" in such areas where water level is very high.

The team visited village Ratta Khera to review drinking water scheme and RO plant installed by state government, the spokesman said.
They also visited village Midda to examine the success of rural latrines constructed by department of Public Health and Sanitation.
The team also reviewed the drinking water and sanitation facilities available in villages, schools anganwari kendras in a meeting with the concerned departments, the spokesman said.

The team sought information regarding presence of heavy metals and other harmful elements in the drinking water, the spokesman said.
The team members laid emphasis on designing projects for the water-logged areas as per localised needs.
On the occasion, Jaskiran Singh said that out of 278 villages of district 224 were declared water logging affected by the state government.
He said that "the ground water was unfit for human consumption, due to which all the water supply schemes are based on surface water".
He said that in such village, government is constructing 10 toilets as pilot project with new technique wherein include one septic tank and one soak-pit is being constructed.