The East Godavari district rural water supply department, as part of summer contingency plan, took several steps for continuous drinking water supply in the rural areas. With irrigation canal closure for two months from April 20 as part of the modernisation programme taken up in the district, the department has taken extra precautions for the supply of uninterrupted drinking water to remote areas and habitations. With canal reopening slated for June 20, almost a month from now, the department has initiated several measures in addition to existing water supply facilities. An action plan with Rs 11.37 crore was submitted to the government to meet the needs of the season. As part of the programme, all the 2,914 habitations in the 58 mandals in the district are being covered with the existing water facility or by providing extra facilities depending on the local needs. At present, the district has 1,048 multi-purpose and permanent water schemes in addition to 8,277 handpumps and 4,525 open wells. To ensure effective coverage of all the systems, monitoring committees were formed at district, divisional and mandal-level. The district collector is the head of the monitoring committee. At the divisional level the revenue divisional officer and at mandal-level the mandal parishad development officer were entrusted with the duty. The panchayat sarpanch was given over-all charge at the village level. Apart from the sarpanch, the village secretary and leaders of self-help groups were also asked to ensure effectiveness of water supply to remote areas in case transport of water is needed. The RWS superintendenting Engineer, Mr M. Ram Mohan, said that instructions were already issued to their department staff to speed up all sanctioned work and bring them into working condition during this season. The superintending engineer also said that additional care is being taken for the supply of protected water in the sea coast region.