Monday, 06 Oct, 2025
Image Source: IANS
The number of active laboratories for testing the quality of water has increased from 2,113 in January 2024 to 2,812 as of August 18, 2025.
On August 14, Prime Minister Narendra Modi marked six years of the Jal Jeevan Mission, a flagship initiative that has brought transformative change to millions of households across India by ensuring access to safe and adequate drinking water through individual household tap connections.
To ensure the long-term sustainability and quality of infrastructure under the Jal Jeevan Mission, with a strong emphasis on the operation and maintenance of rural piped water supply schemes and citizen-centric service delivery, the Finance Minister, in her 2025–26 Budget speech, announced the extension of the Mission till 2028 along with an increased overall outlay. This information was shared by Minister of State for Jal Shakti, V. Somanna, in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha. At the time of the mission's initiation, only 3.23 crore (17 percent) rural households had tap water connections. As of August 18, 2025 around 15.68 crore (81.01 percent) have been provided with tap water connections.
Source: Jal Jeevan Mission Dashboard
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.
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 2,812 as of August 18, 2025. Around 24,80,583 women have been trained across 5,07,613 villages for testing the water samples using the Field Testing Kits (FTK). According to the latest data available on the Jal Jeevan Mission dashboard, 2,63,493 villages in 1,23,949 panchayats under 1,910 blocks in 191 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 percent).
Status of households with tap water connection
Source: Jal Jeevan Mission Dashboard
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 54.66 percent followed by Jharkhand (55.05 percent), West Bengal (56.16 percent) and Rajasthan (56.76 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 (89.62 percent) schools and 9.66 lakh (85.60 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.
Talking about the tap water supply in schools, 9,23,927 (89.62 percent) schools are equipped with tap water connections. Though the JJM was not able to meet the target of providing tap water connections to all the rural households by the end of the year 2024, considering its significance, the government has extended the scheme till 2028 in order to achieve the goal of providing the tap water connections to all the rural households and ensure ‘har ghar jal.’
