Bhubaneswar: In wake of the several media reports of water-borne diseases like jaundice and diarrhea in different cities of Odisha, the government decided to test water purity every week in all the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs).

Chairing a high level meeting at State Secretariat on Saturday on providing pure water to 113 urban cities, Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi asked the Public Health Engineer Organisation (PHEO) to examine the water sample collected from across the urban areas at the state water testing laboratories, which were operationalised recently at Bhubaneswar, Puri, Cuttack and Berhampur.

He also directed for making operational of four other water testing laboratories at Sambalpur, Rourkela, Balasore and Baripada town by end of this month.

A standard operating procedure (SOP) will be prepared for ensuring to test the purity of drinking water every week at the water testing laboratories in urban areas.

Padhi also asked the officials of the Housing & Urban Development (H&UD) department to ensure 100% drinking water connections to the households.

A water mela in this regard will be organized in all the ULBs to create awareness among people on water purity.

The officials have been asked for operationalisation of the drinking water projects as early as possible before the summer season.

H&UD secretary G Mathivathanan informed that 405 drinking water projects will be completed by March this year. The remaining 33 projects will be completed by the month of May.

Similarly, the target has been set to complete the water supply project covering Jatni, IIT, NISER, INFOCITY-II and adjoining areas under PPP mode within March, 2018. The 546 projects will be completed in different phases by end of March, 2019.