Bottled drinking water companies will soon a new competitor in Haryana as the state government is set to have its own brand of bottled mineral drinking water – ‘Haryana Fresh’.

For this, the state government will soon set up a Mineral Water Plant through Public Health Engineering Department.

This decision were taken in the 53rd meeting of Water Supply and Sewerage Board of Public Health Engineering Department held under the chairmanship of Chief Minister, Manohar Lal Khattar, on Monday.

The CM directed the Department to chalk out the modalities for the setting up of this plant. Initially, the bottled mineral water from the plant would be made available to the government institutions. Later, mineral water Reverse Osmosis (RO) plants would be set up in the educational institutions to provide clean and fresh drinking water to the students.

It was also decided in the meeting that a comprehensive testing laboratory would be set up in all districts of the State wherein apart from the drinking water; quality of other eatables would also be checked.

Khattar said providing clean and adequate drinking water facilities to the people is among the top priorities of the state government. It was informed in the meeting that the total outlay of the Public Health Engineering Department is Rs 3676.10 crore. A sum of Rs 1563.34 crore has been earmarked during the year 2020-21 for the creation and augmentation of new water supply, sewerage and storm water drainage infrastructure creation.

Apart from this, a sum of Rs 405.26 Crore has been earmarked for improvement of drinking water supply and providing sewerage and storm water system in urban areas whereas, a sum of Rs 1044.25 Crore has been earmarked for improvement of drinking water supply and providing sewerage system in rural areas. It was also informed that as of now, out of about 30.73 lakh rural households in the state, functional household tap connection (FHTC) has been provided to 23.73 lakh households.

A target has been fixed to provide FHTC in seven lakh households during the year 2020-21 under Jal Jeevan Mission out of which 4.18 lakh households have already been provided with FHTC.