PHED minister Chandra Mohan Rai addresses a news conference in Patna on Wednesday. Picture by Ashok Sinha

Patna, Oct. 19: UK-based Department for International Development (DFID) will spend Rs 164 crore in water supply and sanitation schemes of public health engineering department (PHED) of Bihar.

The fund will come as part of the six-year joint action plan of DFID and PHED starting from 2010 for ensuring better water and sanitation facilities in rural areas of Bihar. State PHED minister Chandra Mohan Rai made the announcement today.

“The DFID provides financial, technical assistance and training of personnel in several developing countries. In Bihar as well, the DFID is spending £145 million for its millennium goal (2010- 2016). The entire amount would be distributed among health department (60 per cent), PHED (20 per cent) and social welfare department (20 per cent). Thus, the total amount to be utilised by PHED would be nearly Rs 164 crore, which would be utilised on water supply and sanitation schemes. The PHED has already received Rs 43 crore for the first and second years,” said Rai.

Earlier, during the day, DFID country head Sam Sharpe and his team, met the minister. All the schemes of DFID in the state come under the ambit of sector-wide approach to strengthening health (SWASTH). The programme memorandum for SWASTH in Bihar has been made, which focuses on quality assurance, community awareness and capacity building in water supply and sanitation schemes among other aspects in the state. Moreover, regional teams of experts, christened B-TAST, would be put up at the state capital and other districts to provide technical assistance.

“The B-TAST would ensure that people in all blocks in Gaya, Nalanda, Purnea and West Champaran do not have to attend to nature’s call in the open. We would also ensure that those villages, which have received Nirmal Gram Puraskar, are maintaining the standards. Also, the assistance of women self-help groups would be utilised to propagate the community operated complete sanitation techniques in rural areas. Moreover, there would be wide-scale studies on the absorption media in arsenic, fluoride and iron-affected villages,” said Rai.

A four-member DFID team from October 17 conducted surveys in three segments — health, urban development and governance — during its three-day trip to Purnea.

Sharpe said his organisation would work in the three segments in accordance with an agreement with the state government.

The DFID team, led by Sharpe, had inspected various surgical wards, operation theatres, medical stores, blood banks and ANM school at Purnea Sadar Hospital. The team also had a talk with the civil surgeon of the hospital, R.C. Mandal. For the first time in several years, doctors, nurses and even drivers of ambulances, were in their uniform during the interaction with the DFID delegation. Purnea district magistrate and collector N. Saravana Kumar said: “A team of DFID is working in India for two years.”