New Delhi, Dec 24 (IANS): Union Minister of Finance & Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman here on Monday had pre-budget consultations with representatives from the water and sanitation sectors.

They discussed challenges faced in providing quality water, sanitation, solid waste management and drainage. They also talked about removing disparities in accessing sanitation and quality of water.

They called for scaling up rural sanitation and hygiene, besides providing sustainable solutions to water scarcity and health issues.

They apprised the Finance Minister of ground realities and to tackle challenges made suggestions, which were related to areas of maintenance of septic tank, decentralisation of waste management system, focus on waste conservation, a bottom-up approach for effective implementation of the Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programme, and the demand-side management for water allocation.

The participants suggested the community water management programme in urban areas, focus on behaviour change communication, region-specific differentiated best practices/model, collectivisation of sanitation workers, eco-friendly sewage treatment, measurement of service standards in core services vis-a-vis urban and rural areas, incentivising waste water treatment and recycling, developing capacity to recharge ground water and focusing on women empowerment through health, water and sanitation.

Minister of State for Finance & Corporate Affairs Anurag Singh Thakur, Dea Secretary Atanu Chakraborty, Revenue Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey, DIPAM Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey, Department of Drinking Sater and Sanitation Secretary Parameswaran Iyer, Rural Development Secretary Amarjeet Sinha, NITI Aayog Member V.K. Paul, CBDT Chairman Pramod Chandra Mody, CEA K.V. Subramanian, and other senior officials of the Finance Ministry attended the meeting.