New Delhi: The Jal Jeevan Mission, introduced by the Modi government in August 2019 with an aim to provide potable tap water supply to all households in rural India by 2024, has already met 45.2 per cent of its assigned target, thanks to states like Goa, Telangana and Haryana, which have ensured 100 per cent tap water connections for all its rural households.
According to a status report shared by the Ministry of Jal Shakti, Department of Drinking Water & Sanitation and the National Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) this week, India has provided potable tap water connections to about 8.69 crore rural households across the country as of 21 December 2021. This is 45.2 per cent of its 2024 target of 18.95 crore.
For the current fiscal year (ending in March 2022), the government had envisaged to provide tap water connections to 10.23 crore rural households, which is about 54 per cent of its total target.
But while the success of the mission in some states is helping boost its overall achievement across the country, states like Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Rajasthan — where the percentage of rural households with potable tap water supply is less than the national average of 45.2 per cent — is slowing the general pace of work.
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Super achievers
According to the report, at the end of 2020, Goa became the first state to report 100 per cent potable tap water supply to all rural households. Telangana and Haryana, and the Union territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Puducherry and Andaman and Nicobar Islands followed Goa’s example, by reaching 100 per cent target this year.
While only five of Haryana’s 22 districts reportedly had 100 per cent potable tap water supply at the beginning of the year, Telangana had already initiated a similar scheme — Mission Bhagiratha, in 2016 — even before the national Jal Jeevan Mission was announced in 2019, which helped it achieve its targets.
Other states that are close to achieving the 100 per cent target, according to data available on the JJM dashboard, include Punjab (where currently about 92 per cent of rural households have tap water connections), Himachal Pradesh (90 per cent) and Gujarat and Bihar (88 per cent each).
Gujarat, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Manipur, Uttarakhand, Meghalaya and the Union territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh are expected to reach 100 per cent target by the end of next year, according to the status report. Bihar is envisaged to reach 100 per cent target by the end of the current financial year.
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Poor performers
Uttar Pradesh, which has managed to provide potable tap water supply to only 13 per cent of its rural households, is the worst performer. Only 34 lakh of 2.64 crore rural households in the state currently have potable tap water supply.
The pace of work in UP seems especially slow when compared to that in neighbouring Bihar, which, according to JJM data, has provided potable tap water connection to over four times more the number of rural households (1.5 crore of 1.72 crore households).
Chhattisgarh (where 15.42 per cent of rural households have potable tap water supply), West Bengal (with 16.52 per cent connections), Jharkhand (with 16.65 per cent) and Rajasthan (with 21.56 per cent connections) follow UP in the list of poor performers.
Ten other states and UTs — Ladakh, Assam, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Tripura, Tamil Nadu, Odisha and Karnataka — have less than the national average of 45.2 per cent rural households with potable table water supply.
According to the Water Ministry and JJM report, however, UP, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Assam, Jharkhand and West Bengal are likely to achieve the 100 per cent target by 2024.
Clubbed together, these states have more than 9.84 crore rural households — slightly more than half of the national total of 18.95 crore rural households — but less than a third of them (2.94 crore) currently have potable tap water connections.
Achieving targets
Before the announcement of the Jal Jeevan Mission by PM Modi on 15 August 2019, about 3.23 crore rural households in the country had potable tap water supply. This means that the government had to provide about 15.72 crore connections in 1,966 days (to achieve the 100 per cent target set for 2024) or 80,010 connections daily.
The status report sets the target of providing 10.23 crore rural households in the country with potable tap water connections by the end of the 2021-2022 financial year. To achieve this, states will have to provide connections to 1.54 crore households in the next 101 days, averaging 1.54 lakh connections daily.
The good news is that of 6 lakh villages in India, work for the project has already been completed in 1.28 lakh villages, and started in about two lakh more.
According to the ministry’s status report, work is yet to start in only 2.76 lakh villages. Of these about 1.22 lakh villages are expected to have initiated work under the project by March 2022.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
(This story has been updated.)
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