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India 08-Oct, 2024

Jal Jeevan Mission achieves new milestone: More than 15 crore rural households are now equipped with tap water connections

By: Team India Tracker

Jal Jeevan Mission achieves new milestone: More than 15 crore rural households are now equipped with tap water connections

At the time of its inception, only 3.23 crore (17%) of rural households had tap water connections. Image Source: IANS

According to the latest data available on the Jal Jeevan Mission dashboard, 2,40,465 villages in 1,13,365 panchayats under 1,806 blocks in 165 districts have attained the Har Ghar Jal status. Har Ghar Jal (HGJ) means all households in that administrative unit are provided with tap water supply.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship initiative Jal Jeevan Mission has crossed a new milestone. According to a press release by the Ministry of Jal Shakti, as of October 7, 2024, around 78.58% of rural households in the country are equipped with tap water connections. Out of the total 19,33,85,931 rural households, 15,19,95,779 households have been provided with tap water connections. Since the launch of the mission, 11,96,32,941 rural households have been provided with tap water connections. On August 15, 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM), which aims to provide tap water to every rural household by 2024.

At the time of its inception, only 3.23 crore (17%) of rural households had tap water connections. The mission aims to bridge this gap by providing nearly 16 crore additional households with tap water by 2024, ensuring the functionality of existing water supply systems, and directly benefiting over 19 crore rural families. This initiative is intended to reduce the rural-urban divide and enhance public health. 

The broad objectives of the Jal Jeevan Mission include: a) Providing Functional Household Tap Connection (FHTC) to every rural household, b) Prioritising FHTC provision in quality-affected areas, drought-prone regions, desert areas, and Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY) villages, c) Ensuring functional tap connections in schools, Anganwadi centres, gram panchayat buildings, health and wellness centres, and community buildings, d) Monitoring the functionality of tap connections, e) Promoting voluntary ownership among the local community through contributions in cash, kind, or labour (shramdaan), f) Ensuring the sustainability of water supply systems, including water sources, infrastructure, and funding for regular operations and maintenance, g) Empowering and developing human resources in the water sector, covering construction, plumbing, electrical work, water quality management, water treatment, catchment protection, and more and h) Raising awareness about the significance of safe drinking water. 

Under the JJM, the states and UTs have been advised to undertake testing of water quality on a periodic basis i.e. once a year for chemical and physical parameters and twice a year for bacteriological parameters and take remedial action wherever necessary to ensure that the water supplied to households is of prescribed quality. The number of active laboratories for testing the quality of water has increased from 2,113 in January 2024 to 2,160 as of October 7, 2024. Around 39,05,717 samples have been tested in these laboratories. Out of the total tested samples, 1,89,981 have been found contaminated. Around 24,71,432 women have been trained across 3,09,761 villages for testing the water samples using the Field Testing Kits (FTK). Maximum number of contaminated water samples have been found in West Bengal (92,205). 

Source: Ministry of Jal Shakti

According to the latest data available on the Jal Jeevan Mission dashboard, 2,40,465 villages in 1,13,365 panchayats under 1,806 blocks in 165 districts have attained the Har Ghar Jal status. Har Ghar Jal (HGJ) means all households in that administrative unit are provided with tap water supply.  

11 States/UTs, which include, Goa, A &N Islands, Dadra Nagar Haveli & Daman Diu, Haryana, Telangana, Puducherry, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Mizoram, and Arunachal Pradesh have provided tap water connection to all rural households (100%) Uttarakhand, Bihar, Ladakh, Nagaland and Lakshadweep have a coverage of more than 90 percent. On the other hand, West Bengal with a coverage of just 52.79 percent followed by Rajasthan (53.49 percent), Kerala (53.78 percent) and Jharkhand (54.43 percent) are the poorest performing states. Uttar Pradesh has tested the maximum number of samples- 5,10,065 followed by the southern state of Tamil Nadu- 4,95,762. In addition to household connections, the Mission has ensured tap water supply in 9.29 lakh (89.10 percent) schools and 9.66 lakh (84.96 percent) anganwadi centres nationwide. In the 112 aspirational districts, tap water access has surged from 21.41 lakh (7.86 percent) households at the time of launch to 1.96 Crore (72.08 percent) households today. At the same time, the allocation towards this project has increased over the years. While ₹10,998 crore was allocated in 2020-21, it rose to ₹45,011 crore in 2021-22 and ₹60,000 crore in 2022-23 and it further increased to ₹70,000 crore in 2023-24.

Source: Ministry of Jal Shakti

The Jal Jeevan Mission has come a long way from receiving Rs 10,000.66 crore in 2019-20 to Rs 55,000 crore in 2022-23. The biggest jump in allocation of funds for the scheme by the central government was witnessed in the year 2021-22 as the allocation went up from Rs 11,000 crore in 2020-21 to Rs 45,011 in 2021-22. The data shows that there has been under utilisation of funds by the states for the successful implementation of the scheme. For example, in the financial year 2021-22, Rs 45,011 crore were allocated by the central government for the Jal Jeevan Mission but of these total funds, only Rs 40,009.77 crore were drawn by different states across the country. But the more surprising part here is that out of the withdrawn funds worth Rs 40,009.77 crore only Rs 25,524.36 crore were utilised by the states.

Though the Jal Jeevan Mission may not be able to achieve its target of providing tap water connections to all the rural households by the end of the year 2024 but looking at the numbers it can be noted that significant progress has been made under the scheme.

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