Water to be supplied from local water sources
IMPHAL, April 28: A state cabinet convened this evening has minutely discussed ways to rein in the water scarcity issue troubling the state over the past few days.
The cabinet has decided to initiate steps on a war footing to collect water from all available sources and to distribute it to the people, informed government spokesperson and state Education and CAF & PD minister Moirangthem Okendro today.
Today’s cabinet meeting was held at the Chief Minister’s secretariat conference room with the Chief Minister in the chair.
The marathon cabinet meeting which started at 3pm continued till 8.30pm.
The meeting has further resolved to pass legislation and take up necessary actions to ensure that such inconveniences are not faced in the future, he said.
Okendro said that the state will pass the legislation to plant more trees around water sources, catchment areas; proper dredging of the river course to allow proper deposition of water; and to punish anyone found cutting trees in the catchment areas, forest.
As of the moment, the first step would be to acquire water from sources where there is still water and supply it to the public, the government spokesperson said. Supplying water from sources including Khuga Dam will be initiated at the earliest.
The cabinet had also approved storing of 15000 MT of Urea as buffer stock for the summer sowing.
He elaborated that the government considering the scarce rainfall and the fertilizer dealers’ failure to bring in adequate amount of fertilizer considering the low profit, has decided to stock 15000 MT of Urea as buffer stock and provide it to the farmers at a subsidised rate.
Today’s cabinet had also approved sub-leasing of the State Mechanised Farm, Lamphel to ICAR so that the later could produce more seeds to be provided to the farmers, he said.
The cabinet has also approved the MoU signed with the National Seed Corporation for the state’s Seed Rolling Plan; construction of the IIIT at Senapati and handing over of the state’s Hydro Power Projects to Central Public Sector Undertakings, the minister said.