A ray of hope has emerged for the delayed urban drinking water projects of the state government with work commencing from on Wednesday, but the dark clouds continue to linger.

Most of the projects, which were already moving in slow motion, are running behind schedule.

The prolonged lockdown to ward off the threat of the novel coronavirus pandemic has further delayed the projects aimed at providing potable water to urban residents.

For example the Rs 290-crore first phase of the Ranchi urban water supply scheme, whose foundation stone was laid by then chief minister Raghubar Das in February 2019, is crawling.

The project, to set up 14 water towers with 898km long pipelines providing free water connections to 1.6 lakh households, has only seen digging work for laying of pipelines between Birsa Chowk and Hinoo Chowk in the capital.

More than 10 wards of Ranchi Municipal Corporation stand to benefit from the drinking water project which is being carried out by Larsen & Toubro and has a completion date of January 2021

Water, as for much of India, is a precious commodity in Jharkhand and tales of woe are common during the summer.

Urban development department secretary Vinay Kumar Choubey is learnt to have issued an express directive to all the private agencies who had bagged the work orders for the urban drinking water projects to start work immediately, albeit by complying with norms stipulated by the Union home ministry.

“We have started work at all the urban drinking water projects across Jharkhand and the private agencies undertaking the construction work have been directed to ensure social-distancing norms and other protocols underlined by the Union home ministry directive,” said Sudipta Surya Sengupta, general manager (water supply and sewerage), Jharkhand Urban Infrastructure Development Company (Juidco).

A senior Juidco official, who requested anonymity because he is not authorised to brief the media, sounded a note of caution.

“The work has commenced in almost all locations of the urban drinking water projects and the projects have been delayed due to the lockdown. However, with strict compliance of social distancing and in-situ contractors (who don't have to travel), the pace of construction work is not going to be the same and most of the projects will get delayed by several months. With most of the workers back in their villages it would also take time to bring them back to cities for starting the work. It seems certain that the projects would be delayed by several months,” the official said.

Last year, after a directive from the then urban development secretary Ajoy Kumar Singh, Juidco had opted for on the spot visits by officials to review the projects every quarter. The visits were meant to iron out local issues like land acquisition and electricity connections by holding meetings with stakeholders including deputy commissioners of the districts concerned at the earliest.

The major projects which witnessed commencement of work on Tuesday were:

Ranchi Phase I urban water supply scheme (cost Rs 290 crore), Dhanbad Phase I urban water supply scheme (Rs 166.16 crore), Adityapur urban water supply scheme (Rs 395.15 crore), Hazaribagh urban water supply scheme (Rs 517.54 crore), Chas urban water supply scheme (Rs 155.38 crore), Godda urban water supply (Rs 83.30 crore), Madhupur water supply (Rs 66.01 crore), Chatra water supply (Rs 64.97 crore), Giridih urban water supply (Rs 53.57 crore).