JORHAT, June 19 - In an interaction with journalists at the Jorhat Press Club, BJP MLA Hitendra Nath Goswami on Saturday said that in the past few days, he had initiated action to expedite work to provide pure drinking water in both rural and urban localities and to solve the water-logging problem in several areas of the city.
Two major water-supply schemes for several villages are under construction with Government�s expenditure of Rs 298 crore and Rs 72 crore respectively near the bank of the Brahmaputra in the district, Goswami said that he had studied both the projects in detail and had asked the officers concerned to complete them without further delay.
�The two projects are expected to supply drinking water to more than 31 village panchayats in rural Jorhat. I am trying my best to start the two schemes without any inordinate delay,� he said.
As the two projects of the Public Health Engineering department have not touched the urban localities of the city, he assured of the proper functioning of the existing water supply schemes in the city, run by the Assam Urban Water Supply and Sewerage Board and the Jorhat Municipal Board.
To solve the civic problem of artificial flooding and water-logging at several important localities of the city, the MLA said that he plans to implement the Government�s new schemes of drainage system after serious technical studies.
�After discussion with the officials of the district administration, municipal board, Water Resource Department, PWD, Town and Country Planning Department and many others, we are going to prepare a master plan for the city. No public money will be spent through corrupt practices in the construction of drainage system of Jorhat. More than Rs 40 crore was spent in the construction of drains of Jorhat in the past few years. But the problems of artificial flood and water-logging are looming large at our urban localities as the allotted money was misappropriated by some corrupt people," he said.
He said that he was planning to keep a grievance box at every Government office of Jorhat so that any victim of corruption and malpractice can drop his or her grievance letter against corrupt officials of those offices.
�I will open those grievance boxes personally and start action to eradicate corruption in my constituency. I can assure that the policy of good governance and zero tolerance against corruption will be implemented effectively in Jorhat,� he added.
He also urged the civil society, journalists and the officers of administration and various departments to fight against corruption in Jorhat which has witnessed several cases of misappropriation of public money, illegal appointments in the Health and Family Welfare department and misuse of Government funds by some officers in the past several years of Congress rule.
