Uttarakhand: Chief Secretary is serious about improving complaint redressal in drinking water matters, said – satisfaction of common citizens comes first in drinking water supply

Chief Secretary Mrs. Radha Raturi has given strict instructions to make the social audit of water supply schemes effective and to include women’s feedback in drinking water schemes as most important. Chief Secretary Mrs. Radha Raturi has given strict instructions to include water consumers, especially local women, in the social audit. Giving strict instructions to give top priority to the satisfaction of the common citizens on drinking water related matters, Chief Secretary Mrs. Raturi has given instructions to adopt best practices in this field and strengthen the grievance redressal mechanism. Along with this, in the meeting of the 11th High Powered Committee (HPC) of Uttarakhand Water Supply Program assisted by the World Bank in semi-urban areas in the Secretariat, CS Mrs. Radha Raturi has instructed the drinking water department and other concerned officials to immediately send a letter to the Government of India for the extension of the time limit of Jal Jeevan Mission. While giving instructions to pay special attention to the quality of drinking water along with uninterrupted water supply to the general public, Chief Secretary Mrs. Radha Raturi has instructed to enter all the main performance indicators in the state of art MIS on the user friendly dashboard under best practices. The Chief Secretary has also instructed to strengthen the complaint redressal mechanism by sending auto alerts through SMS to the concerned engineers in case of gaps in service delivery and to resolve the complaints within 48 hours. The Chief Secretary has instructed to work continuously to increase the percentage of satisfaction of consumers.

In today’s meeting, Chief Secretary Mrs. Radha Raturi gave administrative and financial approval on the extension of the time limit of the project management consultancy firm for the Uttarakhand water supply program and the environmental audit of this program. Along with this, she gave administrative and financial approval for the appointment of consultancy services for Implementations Completion and Result Report (ICR) for the Uttarakhand water supply program. CS also approved the extension of time limit of Moholia and Umrukhurd water supply schemes of Uttarakhand Drinking Water Corporation.

It was informed in the meeting that in the Uttarakhand Water Supply Program assisted by World Bank at a cost of Rs. 975 crore, water supply is being provided for 16 hours daily with 100 percent volumetering in 22 semi-urban areas of Dehradun, Tehri, Haridwar, Nainital and Udham Singh Nagar. Under this, a large population is getting benefited with 106202 water connections. All the schemes out of the total 22 semi-urban schemes being operated under Uttarakhand Water Supply Program have been completed. The World Bank has also expressed satisfaction over the scheme. On this occasion, Secretary Shri Dilip Jawalkar, Shri Shailesh Bagauli and officials of the concerned departments were present.