The Bauchi State Rural Water Supply Agency says, it had rehabilitated no fewer than 800 hand pumps across seven local councils to improve water supply.
Malam Ibrahim Shira, the community mobilisation officer of the agency made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Bauchi on Tuesday.
He said the benefiting communities were in Jama’are, Misau, Giyade, Dambam, Kirfi, Itas-Gadau and Tafawa Balewa local government areas.
He added that the rehabilitation project were being executed across local government areas that were not covered by the state Water Sanitation and Hygiene programme (WASH).
He explained that the agency had established a 200 member Water and Sanitation committees in each of the benefiting local government areas, to ensure regular maintenance of the facilities through collaborative effort with the agency.
He said the agency would soon begin drilling of hundreds of additional hand pumps and motorised boreholes across the 20 existing local government areas in the state, to increase access to drinking water in the rural areas.
In a related development Shira noted that the African Development Bank (AfDB), had recently commenced total rehabilitation and upgrading of three model primary schools in Dagauda in Dambam, Mashema in Itas Gadau and Duguri in Alkaleri Local Government Areas.
He said the project was being executed under the Bauchi State/AfDB Supported Inclusive Service Delivery and Livelihood Empowerment Integrated Project (IBSDLEIP).
According to him, the facilities to be rehabilitated included: classrooms, Laboratories, Administrative blocks, ICT centres, Football fields, Children play grounds and Staff quarters of the benefiting schools.
He said that, Mr Jidauna Tula, the commissioner for water resources, who doubles as chairman of the steering committee of the project, had expressed satisfaction at the level of work done during an inspection.
Tula urged the contractors handling the projects to execute qualitative jobs as well as adhere to the time frame within which the projects were expected to be completed.
NAN reports that the schools rehabilitation project was a collaborative efforts between the Bauchi government and AfDB to fast track development of education in the state.
