Tuesday, 29 Apr, 2025
Out of a total of 19,36,61,151 rural households, 15,56,92,666 have been connected to tap water. Image Source: IANS
The Jal Jeevan Mission has come a long way from receiving ₹10,000.66 crore in 2019-20 to ₹70,000 crore in 2023-24
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's flagship initiative, the Jal Jeevan Mission, has achieved a significant milestone. As of October 7, 2024, approximately 80.39 percent of rural households in India now have access to tap water, according to a statement from the Ministry of Jal Shakti. Out of a total of 19,36,61,151 rural households, 15,56,92,666 have been connected to tap water. Since the mission's launch, 12,33,29,828 rural households have been provided with tap water. The mission was announced by Prime Minister Modi on August 15, 2019, with the goal of ensuring that every rural household has access to tap water by 2024.
At the time of the mission's initiation, only 3.23 crore (17 percent) rural households had tap water connections. The mission aims to close this gap by providing nearly 16 crore more households with tap water by 2024, ensuring that existing water supply systems remain functional, and benefiting over 19 crore rural families. The initiative also aims to reduce the rural-urban divide and improve public health.
The key objectives of the Jal Jeevan Mission include: a) Providing Functional Household Tap Connections (FHTC) to all rural households, b) Prioritizing FHTC in quality-affected areas, drought-prone regions, desert areas, and villages under the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY), c) Ensuring functional tap connections in schools, Anganwadi centre, panchayat buildings, health and wellness center, and community buildings, d) Monitoring the functionality of tap connections, e) Encouraging local community owne₹hip through contributions in cash, kind, or labor (shramdaan), f) Ensuring the sustainability of water supply systems, including sources, infrastructure, and funding for maintenance, g) Empowering and training human resources in the water sector across various areas like construction, plumbing, electrical work, water quality management, and catchment protection, and h) Raising awareness about the importance of safe drinking water.
Source: Ministry of Jal Shakti
Additionally, under the JJM, states and union territories are advised to conduct regular water quality testing—once a year for chemical and physical parameters, and twice a year for bacteriological parameters—taking corrective measures as needed to ensure the water supplied meets quality standards.
The number of active laboratories for testing the quality of water has increased from 2,113 in January 2024 to 2,182 as of April 4, 2025. Around 24,80,402 women have been trained across 5,07,582 villages for testing the water samples using the Field Testing Kits (FTK). According to the latest data available on the Jal Jeevan Mission dashboard, 2,56,775 villages in 1,20,758 panchayats under 1,880 blocks in 189 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, Lakshadweep and Sikkim have a coverage of more than 90 percent. On the other hand, Kerala with a coverage of just 54.48 percent followed by Jharkhand (54.85 percent), West Bengal (55.22 percent) and Rajasthan (56.12 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 9.32 lakh (89.36 percent) schools and 9.69 lakh (85.21 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. The budget for the FY 2025-26 stands at ₹67,000 crore.
The Jal Jeevan Mission has come a long way from receiving ₹10,000.66 crore in 2019-20 to ₹70,000 crore in 2023-24. 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 ₹11,000 crore in 2020-21 to ₹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, ₹45,011 crore were allocated by the central government for the Jal Jeevan Mission but of these total funds, only ₹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 ₹40,009.77 crore only ₹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.
