Mamata Banerjee on Monday said over nine lakh families in Bengal were not getting water supply through pipelines under the Centre’s Jal Jeevan Mission because various central agencies, including Indian Railways, the NHAI and the DVC were not cooperating.

“About 50 lakh people from 9.03 lakh families in Bengal were not getting supply of water as the central agencies were not giving permission.... The chief secretary (Manoj Pant) will hold a meeting with the central agencies soon and ask them to grant the required permission so that these people get water connections at the earliest,” the chief minister said after a review meeting of the ₹58,000 crore water supply scheme in the Assembly on Monday.

Sources aware of the development said the implementing agency of the scheme — the PHE — was facing trouble in laying pipelines on the land currently in possession of various central agencies since they did not allow laying pipelines on their land.

“This is the reason why the initiative to give pipeline connections to about 9 lakh households has been stalled. The chief minister was briefed about the situation and she asked the chief secretary to look into the issue,” said a senior bureaucrat.

The chief minister was not satisfied with the progress of the scheme as some 93 lakh households could be connected under the water supply scheme out of a total of
1.77 crore rural households in the state.

The chief minister said that in many areas water supply could not be given to many households even after pipelines were laid as some agencies prepared detailed project reports (DPRs) without identifying the water source.

“This is why water supply could not be given to many areas. I have asked all these agencies who prepared erroneous DPRs be blacklisted,” Mamata said.

She said that the state found that water was being pilfered or taken away for other purposes in 18,230 locations, mostly in the districts of East Midnapore, South and North 24-Parganas, causing hurdles to the water supply project.