By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR/NEW DELHI: Niti Aayog has praised Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik after Bhubaneswar first city to achieve 100% COVID vaccination, Puri first city to supply 24×7 drinking water. Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant in a tweet lauded the State Government’s efforts.
“Bhubaneswar first city to achieve 100% COVID vaccination, Puri first city to supply 24×7 drinking water. Congrats @Naveen_Odisha & people of Odisha for these achievements and for also sponsoring our national men & women hockey teams since 2018, who have now reached the semis!,”CEO,Niti Aayog Amitabh Kant tweeted @amitabhk87.
Odisha’s Bhubaneswar has become the first city in India to achieve 100 per cent vaccination coverage against Covid-19. Additionally, about one lakh migrant workers have also been administered the first dose of COVID-19 vaccines in the capital city of Odisha. At least 10 drive-through vaccination facilities were set up in the city. Additionally, 15 immunisation centres were built inside schools, for the elderly and differently abled.
Holy town of Puri , famous for Shri Lord Jagannatha Temple, became the first Indian city to have 24-hour safe drinking water facility like that in London and Singapore. The scheme, named Sujal, was first launched in October 2020 by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in a pilot mode with an aim to provide clean drinking water from taps to 1.5 million people in 15 towns of Odisha by March 2022. The deadline has now been revised to October 2023.
Under the Sujal scheme, the government now draws water from the Bhargavi river flowing near the town. The water is then channelised to a reservoir and then sent to a treatment plant at Samang. There, it goes through several processes including chlorination before being sent through a network of pipes to 250,000 people. While the water demand of Puri town is about 32-34 million litres per day, the plant purifies 42 million litres.
