Representational file image.
| Photo Credit: K. Murali Kumar
Bihar Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) Minister Sanjay Kumar Singh on Wednesday (May 27, 2026) said that the facility of providing piped drinking water in all the remaining Mahadalit Tolas (hamlets) will be completed within three months under ‘Har Ghar Nal Ka Jal Yojana’.
“Our focus is to provide piped drinking water to the Mahadalit Tolas. Our target is to complete the installation of piped drinking water within three months,” Mr. Singh told reporters during the press meet in Patna, while accompanied by the Department’s Principal Secretary Rajesh Kumar, Engineer-In-Chief Nityanand Prasad and Engineer-In-Chief Abhay Kumar Singh.
With a view to providing safe drinking water to families in rural areas, the State government launched ‘Har Ghar Nal Ka Jal Yojana’ in 2016. Mr Singh said that the Department is currently providing piped drinking water to more than 93% of families.
A total of 2.66 lakh families were receiving piped drinking water in 2016, which has increased to 1.87 crore families in 2026, the Minister said, while asserting that the Department has set a target of providing piped drinking water to 2.02 crore families in the State’s rural areas.
The Department, which is primarily responsible for the supply of safe drinking water to rural areas, is supplying drinking water in 1,14,450 wards of the rural areas, he said and assured the people of the State that the government would ensure proper and adequate supply of drinking water to everyone, even during the peak summer season.
Asserting that the State has witnessed a significant improvement in groundwater level between 2019 and 2026, Mr. Singh said that the number of Panchayats, whose groundwater level was below 50 feet (very serious category), has declined to 19 in 2026 from 138 in 2019, which is a decline of 66 per cent.
Similarly, the number of Panchayats coming under serious category with a groundwater level depth of 40-50 feet has declined to 186 from 468, Panchayats in medium category with water level depth of 30-40 feet has declined to 1,158 from 1,270, number of Panchayats having water level depth of 20-30 feet has declined to 2,213 from 2,529 while the number of Panchayats with water level of 20 feet, considered the best category, has increased to 4,222 in 2026 from 3,981 in 2019, the Minister said.
The Department has set up a Centralised Grievance Redressal Cell (CGRC) where people can lodge, track and monitor the status of their complaints. Out of 1.54 lakh complaints that have been received on CGRC between August 2025 and May 2026, 1.46 lakh complaints have been resolved, the Minister said.
The Department has made special arrangements to cope with the problem of severe heat wave conditions and possible water crisis, Mr. Singh said, adding that 475 tankers, 15 ‘Jaldoots’ and 15 water ATMs have been made available in critically affected areas of the state.
He added that the Department’s team is also on the job to repair 86,000 hand pumps and is currently engaged in installing around 1,000 hand pumps in the current fiscal year in the districts of South Bihar, which are drought-prone.
Published – May 28, 2026 01:23 am IST
