The World Bank has in principle accepted to provide resources for drinking water schemes in Andhra Pradesh. After separate meetings with Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan last week, the World Bank representatives have given this assurance.
They have also inspected the drinking water supply system in Ambaripet, Nandigama mandal of NTR district. They had a special meeting with the engineers of the rural drinking water supply department of Krishna and NTR districts. Various matters were discussed including the work done so far and remaining work in Jal Jeevan Mission.
The implementation of the Jal Jeevan Mission became problematic as the YSRCP government did not provide proper state share funds. Under JJM, which started in August 2018, the Center has approved the management of 77,917 works with an estimated cost of Rs 27,248 crore in AP.
The Jagan government has agreed to the agreement that the central and state governments should provide 50 percent of the funds each. Between 2019-20 and 2023-24, Rs.2,254.89 crores have been released under the central government share. The YSRCP government has given Rs.1630.36 crore under the state share.
However, bills of more than Rs.535.50 crore have been kept pending for contractors, who have done the works. Similarly, the previous government did not properly release the share funds of the AP government for the construction of rural roads undertaken with the financial assistance of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) with an estimate of Rs.4,976 crores. Now the new Government is planning to complete the Jal Jeevan Mission.
On the other hand, the World Bank is helping the scheme implemented by the Center for the safety of dams. In this scheme, the central government will provide 70 percent of the funds, while the state has to contribute remaining 30 percent. All these years, Jagan’s government has not come forward to bear that 30 percent. As a result, the funds provided by the Center for the security of the projects were not utilized properly.
In this situation, the alliance government is planning to complete the work of Jal Jeevan Mission first with the World Bank loan. For this, the engineers of the Rural Drinking Water Supply Department will prepare proposals for the necessary funds to complete the pending works.
