Chandigarh: An audit report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) on the implementation of the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) in Punjab state has found that groundwater extraction in the state is the highest in the country.
The report, tabled as part of a series of CAG reports in the Vidhan Sabha Monday, also revealed that groundwater was contaminated with arsenic, nitrates, iron and fluoride above permissible limits. The audit covered the period between 2019 and 2024.
“Groundwater extraction in Punjab was not only maximum among all the states of India but was also significantly higher compared to neighbouring states,” said the report.
The CAG report said that the JJM encouraged the use of surface water instead of groundwater, but Punjab continued to rely heavily on groundwater.
It said that of Punjab’s 23 districts, only two, Pathankot and Muktsar, were “safe”, whereas 18 were “over-exploited” in terms of groundwater extraction. It added that two, Mansa and Roopnagar, were “critical” and one, Fazilka, was “semi-critical”. The report said that extraction levels were the highest in Sangrur, Malerkotla, Jalandhar and Kapurthala.
According to the report, the state said its total annual groundwater extraction for domestic use was 1.05 billion cubic meters (bcm), which is less than the total annual groundwater allocation for domestic use estimated at 1.08 bcm.
The government also told CAG that the problem of over-exploitation of groundwater was because of excessive extraction for intensive agricultural activities rather than for drinking purposes.
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Contaminated water
The CAG report also highlighted significant contamination across parameters between 2019 and 2024, but citing an annual water quality report by Punjab’s Department of Water Supply and Sanitation, the CAG noted that local areas affected by contaminants in rural drinking water supply fell from 1,634 to 1,023 between 2019 and 2024.
It said that arsenic levels exceeded the safe limit of 0.01 Parts Per Million (PPM) in 815 habitations in 2019-2020 and 593 in 2023-2024, with Amritsar, Gurdaspur and Tarn Taran being the worst affected.
Nitrate contamination surpassing the 45 PPM limit was found in 69 habitations in 2019-2020 compared with 20 in 2023-2024, particularly in Ferozepur, Ludhiana and Roopnagar.
Iron contamination exceeding 1.0 PPM was reported in 45 habitations in 2019-2020, with Amritsar, Ferozepur and Roopnagar being the most impacted.
The audit also found that other metal contamination surpassing permissible limits fell from 134 habitations in 2019-2020 to 22 habitations in 2023-2024, affecting Fazilka and Patiala the most.
Fluoride levels exceeded safe limits in 319 habitations in 2019-2020 and had fallen to 195 in 2023-2024, with Patiala and Fatehgarh Sahib being the worst affected.
Uranium contamination was detected in 252 habitations in 2019-2020 and 174 in 2023-2024 in Fazilka, Ferozepur and Moga, surpassing safety limits set by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), said the report.
The latest report comes after the Annual Ground Water Quality Report-2024 released by the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) in February last year also reported that groundwater in several districts of Punjab and Haryana contained uranium, nitrates, arsenic, chloride and fluoride in concentrations exceeding permissible limits.
The CAG report added that there was also a huge shortage of water testing laboratories in the state.
As of 31 March 2024, Punjab had one state laboratory, 17 district laboratories, six regional laboratories, seven block laboratories and two mobile laboratories.
It said that there was a 95 percent shortage of laboratories at the block level, with just seven labs for 153 blocks.
Between 2021 and 2024, district water testing laboratories faced a significant 33 percent to 95 percent shortfall in meeting their annual target of conducting 3,000 tests.
Under the JJM, these district-level laboratories are required to forward confirmed cases of contamination to the state laboratory immediately for further testing on advanced parameters.
The audit report said that between 2021 and 2024, out of 588 samples that tested positive in four districts, only the district laboratory in Ludhiana sent 11 samples to the state laboratory, while the other district laboratories failed to comply with the Drinking Water Quality Monitoring & Surveillance Framework guidelines laid down under the JJM.
In 2021-22 and 2022-23, the results of water quality testing for 45.5 percent and 63 percent of samples, respectively, were declared after 31 days of receiving the samples, thereby making the chances of timely intervention nearly impossible.
Inflated reporting
The CAG’s compliance report of the JJM in Punjab also pointed out that the mission encountered several “structural and operational challenges” in the state, including instances of “inflated reporting” of households with access to tap water.
The report says that instead of conducting a baseline data survey to verify access of rural households to piped tap water as required under the JJM, the state declared it had achieved 100 percent coverage of Functional Household Tap Connections (FHTC) under its State Water Sanitation Mission (SWSM) in July 2023.
The CAG says this declaration was misleading because it falsely included 11.27 lakh households that had arranged their own drinking water sources. The state government had not actually provided them with piped drinking water from water supply schemes. However, their numbers were included to prepare inflated proposals.
The report added that the state was unable to fully utilise allocated funds under the JJM because of inaccurate preparation of Annual Action Plans.
The report said that JJM implementation funds allocated by the government of India from 2019 to 2024 amounted to almost Rs 5,130 crore, but the state could use only Rs 750 crore (15 percent) during the period.
In August 2019, the Government of India launched the JJM as a flagship initiative to ensure sustainable access to safe and adequate drinking water.
The JJM is a time-bound Mission Mode Programme to ensure piped water supply to every rural household in the country through Functional Household Tap Connections (FHTC) by 2024.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)