Jamshedpur, April 17: The work of installing tubewells across the state has hit a roadblock because of the water and sanitation department?s failure to supply the required pipes to contractors engaged in the project.

The water and sanitation department had set a target of installing 36,000 tubewells across the state before the onset of the summer. But the sudden stoppage of the supply of pipes has halted the work and indications are the government would not be able to meet its target (approximately 16,000 tubewells are yet to be sunk) by the deadline (end of May).

Earlier, the contractors engaged in sinking tubewells that were responsible for arranging the pipes.

But in the last financial year, the state government had amended the rules and started supplying the pipes to the contractors.

This, the water and sanitation department officials claimed, was done to ensure that ?quality? pipes are used while sinking tubewells.

The water and sanitation department placed orders for the pipes a couple of days ago, and the consignment is expected to arrive by the third week of this month.

Claiming that the delay was due to a logistics problem, a senior official in the department said: ?The contractors would be provided with the material as soon as the department gets it from the suppliers. The pending work (of installing tubewells) would be completed by May-end.?

The department?s secretary, Sudhir Prasad, said there was a delay in supplying the pipes to the contractors concerned.

He added: ?But we are confident that the remaining quota of tubewells would be sunk by the deadline.?

The government has also instructed the district deputy commissioners to monitor the progress of the work and furnish reports on a weekly basis so that the necessary follow-up could be done, he added.

But water and sanitation department sources said it is going to be a gargantuan task for the contractors to meet the target of before the 16,000 tubewells by May, the government deadline expires for the project.

?The soil in most of the districts are rocky. It takes more than 15 hours to complete the drilling to sink one tubewell. Therefore it is a certainty that the contractors would not be able to complete the work within the stipulated time,? said a senior official.

The water and sanitation department had shortlisted, through tenders, contractors for this project by the end of January.

This theory gained more ground when The Telegraph spoke to a contractor involved in the project.

?The department should have provided us with the full quota of (required) pipes by early March, so that we could have completed the work before the onset of summer,? he said.

?Now since the water and sanitation department has delayed the supply of the material, it would be a Herculean task for me to complete the work before June,? the contractor added.

?The contractor working in the Palamau division has to sink nearly 250 tubewells. It takes almost a day to sink one tubewell because of the nature of the soil,? he added.

The leader of the UPA convener in the state and Dumka legislator, Stephen Marandi, accused the Arjun Munda government of not taking the issue seriously.

?Just see how inept this government is. Could it not make alternate arrangements to ensure that the work was completed in time so that people could water during summer,? maintained Marandi.