Anantnag: A pending inspection of the material procured by contractors, by the Material & Procurement (M&P) wing of the Public Health Engineering Department (PHE), is causing inordinate delay in implementation of the Prime Minister’s Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM), here in Pulwama district of south Kashmir.
The JJM is a flagship scheme of the central government aimed at providing potable drinking water to every household in India through Functional Household Tap Connections (FHTCs) by the end of 2024.
The focus of the scheme are the rural areas of the country where clean drinking water has been a major issue and absence of which has been a major contributing factor to outbreaks of diseases among the population.
As per the guidelines of the scheme, the contractors working on JJM projects have been asked to procure the GI and DI pipes from the open market – for ease of working and timely completion of the work.
“Earlier this work was done by the M&P wing of the PHE. But now the M&P has been entrusted with the inspection of the material procured by contractors, after which the contractors are given the go-ahead to lay down the pipes,” a source in the PHE department told Kashmir Reader.
However, for reasons better known to the officials of the department, the inspection has not been carried out for several months now. As a result, not only is the scheme facing delay but the contractors are also in a fix as they have huge amounts of money invested in the raw material.
“Unless the inspection is carried out, we won’t be able to work, and that will mean our bills remaining held up with the department. We have taken loans to procure the material and this inordinate delay is costing us quite heavily,” a contractor working on a JJM project in Pulwama told Kashmir Reader, requesting not to be named.
The contractors say that they have been pleading with the department to conduct the inspection, but to no avail. “The only explanation we can think of is that procurement of the material was a money-minting opportunity for the officials, which has been snatched from them. They are plain grumpy with the fact,” another contractor alleged.
Kashmir Reader tried talking to Chief Engineer of PHE, Iftikhar Wani, but repeated calls to his number went unanswered.
The Superintendent Engineer (SE) of the department for Pulwama/Shopian, Roop Kishan Raina, said the contractors had some documents pending.
“They have produced the documents now and today a round of inspection was carried out as well,” Raina said.

Suhail A Shah