Bhubaneswar, March 7: The state government today decided to fast track the Buxi Jagabandhu Assured Water Supply to Habitations (Basudha) scheme both in rural and urban areas of Odisha.

The decision to prioritise the drinking water scheme in light of growing reports of water scarcity was made at a meeting chaired by chief secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi. A committee, headed by the development commissioner, will formulate the project details.

Finance minister Pradip Amat announced the new scheme, which has a provision of Rs 1,065 crore, in his budget speech. While he allocated Rs 750 crore from the fund for rural areas, the rest will be spent in urban areas.

The scheme will be for a two-year period and the modalities would be formulated accordingly. While panchayat bodies and the rural water supply and sanitation organisation will share the cost in rural areas, urban local bodies and the Public Health Engineering Organisation will jointly take it up in urban areas, said a senior government official.

In the rural areas, implementation of the scheme would imply taking up pipe-water supply projects on a priority basis in villages with a population of more than 1,000. Odisha has more than 1.56 lakh villages or hamlets. Of these, only 38,819 are covered by pipe-water supply. Besides, 690 pipe-water supply projects are under construction and another 334 are in the pipeline. With the advent of summer, reports of water scarcity are pouring in from various rural and urban pockets. Keeping this in mind, Padhi had on March 4, directed all district collectors to take up preventive maintenance of hand pump tube wells and pipe-water supply schemes to mitigate the scarcity of drinking water during the summer.

He had asked the collectors to make an inventory of drinking water sources like pipe-water supply schemes and tube wells within three days. The repair and maintenance would be completed by March 31 and the collectors will review the situation daily.

"If any officer is found to be non-performing, he/she will be immediately placed under suspension and departmental proceedings will be drawn up against him/her," the circular warned.

State and district-level observers will be designated for tracking drinking water scarcity, if any, across Odisha. The state-level observers will not be below the rank of additional secretary, while senior officers not below the rank of deputy secretary will be designated for each block at the district level to monitor the progress.