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New Delhi : Union Finance & Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman held her 9th Pre-Budget Consultation meeting with the leading representatives from Water and Sanitation sectors here on December 23, 2019, in connection with the General Budget 2020-21.
Along with the Finance Minister, the said meeting was attended by Anurag Singh Thakur, Minister of State for Finance & Corporate Affairs; Atanu Chakraborty, Secretary, DEA; Ajay Bhushan Pandey, Revenue Secretary; Tuhin Kanta Pandey, Secretary, DIPAM; Parameswaran Iyer, Secretary, Department of Drinking water and Sanitation, Amarjeet Sinha, Secretary Ministry of Rural Development; V K Paul, Member, NITI Aayog; Pramod Chandra Mody, Chairman, CBDT; and Dr K V Subramanian, CEA.
During the meeting, discussions were held on challenges faced in providing quality water, sanitation, solid waste management and drainage in India. Experts also talked about removing disparities in accessing sanitation and quality water. Experts felt there is a need to scale up rural sanitation and hygiene besides providing sustainable solutions to water scarcity and health issues.
Representatives from Water and Sanitation sectors also apprised the Finance Minister of ground realities and gave many suggestions to tackle current challenges. Suggestions were related to areas of maintenance of septic tank, decentralisation of waste management system, focus on waste conservation, a bottom’s up approach for effective implementation of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programme, demand side management for water allocation, community water management programme in urban areas, focus on behaviour change communication, region-specific differentiated best practices/model, collectivisation of sanitation workers, eco-friendly sewage treatment, measurement of service standards in core services vis-à-vis urban and rural areas, incentivising waste water treatment and recycling, developing capacity to recharge ground water and focusing on women empowerment through health, water and sanitation among others, according to a PIB release.
The participants at the meeting included Arumugam Pillai Kalimuthu, Managing Trustee, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Institute; Bin Chacko, Manager, Government Relations, World Vision India; Jyoti Sharma, President, FORCE; Manoj Ramchandra Sable, Chief Executive Officer, JAAGAR Enterprises; Shaonli Chakraborty, Swasti, (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene); V K Madhavan, Chief Executive Officer, Water Aid India; Ms Sajeev S Jha, Programme Manager, India Sanitation Coalition, FICCI; Avinash Sapru, Action Aid; Asadullah, Programme Director CBGA; Chandrakant Lahariya, National Professional Officer (Health Care, Access and Protection) to represent WHO India, and Nicolas Osbert, Chief Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Section, UNICEF.