India News | Newly-inducted Health and PHED Ministers Take Charge in Rajasthan

Jaipur, Nov 24 (PTI) Rajasthan's new Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) and Ground Water Minister Mahesh Joshi and Health Minister Parsadi Lal Meena took charge of their respective offices on Wednesday.

On the occasion, Joshi said the department's entire focus would be on uninterrupted, regular and adequate supply of clean drinking water to the public in the state. Along with this, vigorous efforts will be made at every level with the help of the people to stop water wastage.

Also Read | Mozilla To Reportedly End Support for Firefox Lockwise Password Manager Next Month.

Joshi, who was the government's chief whip in the Ashok Gehlot cabinet, has been made the Minister of PHED and Ground Water in the cabinet reshuffle and expansion. Joshi has replaced B D Kalla. Kalla has been made the Minister of Education (Primary and Secondary).

Due to leakages in pipelines at many places, more water goes into waste than it is used, Joshi said. Old pipelines in such areas will be replaced and a concrete strategy prepared to prevent wastage of drinking water.

Also Read | Delhi: Schools, Colleges, Government Offices to Reopen from November 29.

He said despite the circumstances arising due to coronavirus pandemic, the work of other drinking water projects like Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) have been taken forward in the state over the past three years and will be done in future also.

Newly-inducted Health Minister Parsadi Lal Meena on the occasion said that the health of the people of the state is the topmost priority for the state government. Efforts will be made on a large scale to provide better medical facilities to the public.

Meena succeeds Raghu Sharma, who stepped down with the intention of working for the organisation. Sharma has been appointed as the Congress in-charge of the party in Gujarat.

More than 83 per cent people in Rajasthan have been given the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine and more than 53 per cent people have been given the second dose, said the health minister.

He said the fight against coronavirus would be incomplete without both the doses being administered to individuals. In such a situation, the officials will be instructed to make a time-bound programme and vaccinate the people deprived of the second dose at the earliest.

The health minister said the state government has made better use of the pandemic period and worked to strengthen the infrastructure of medical facilities.

More free tests and medicines are being made available at primary health centres (PHCs) and community health centres (CHCs). He said that necessary medical facilities will be made available at all CHCs and PHCs in the coming days so that villagers do not have to go to cities for treatment.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)