Chamba: An Aspirational District Of Himachal Pradesh Becomes 100th ‘Har Ghar Jal’ District
Jal Jeevan Mission On Track To Fulfil Government’s Resolve To Provide Tap Water To Every Rural Household By 2024
After touching the milestone of providing tap water supply to more than 9 Crore homes on 16th February, 2022, Jal Jeevan Mission achieved another milestone of providing tap water to every home of 100 districts in the country, today. Chamba, an Aspirational District of Himachal Pradesh has become the 100th ‘Har Ghar Jal’ District. Chamba is the fifth aspirational district to become ‘Har Ghar Jal’. Other four Har Ghar Jal Aspirational districts are: Bhadradri Kothgudem, Jayashankar Bhupalpalli, Komram Bheem Asifabad (all in Telangana) and Mewat in Haryana.
To translate Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s vision of providing clean tap water to every home in the country by 2024, in a short span of two and half years and despite COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown disruptions, Jal Jeevan Mission, has provided tap water supply to more than 5.78 Crore rural households. As a result, today 100 districts in the country are enjoying benefits of clean tap water supply and Jal Jeevan Mission is on track to fulfill the Government’s resolve to provide tap water supply to every rural household by 2024.
At the announcement of the Mission on 15th August 2019, out of 19.27 Crore households only 3.23 Crore (17%) households in India had tap water connections. Following the principle of Prime Minister’s vision of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas and Sabka Prayas’, in this short period, 100 districts, 1,138 blocks, 66,328 Gram Panchayats and 1,36,803 villages have become ‘Har Ghar Jal’. In Goa, Haryana, Telangana, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Puducherry, Dadar & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu, every rural household has tap water supply. Many more States like Punjab (99%), Himachal Pradesh (92.5%), Gujarat (92%) and Bihar (90%) are on the verge of becoming ‘Har Ghar Jal’ in 2022.
To achieve the mammoth task of providing tap water supply to every rural household in a span of five years, Rs 3.60 lakh Crore has been allocated. Rs. 60,000 Crore has been allocated to ‘Har Ghar Jal’ in Union Budget 2022-23 to provide tap water to 3.8 Crore households.
In addition to above, in 2021-22, Rs 26,940 Crore have been allocated to States as 15th Finance Commission tied grant for water & sanitation to Rural Local Bodies/ PRIs. There is an assured funding of Rs 1,42,084 Crore for the next five years i.e. up to 2025-26. This huge investment in rural areas across the country, is accelerating economic activities and boosting rural economy, as well as creating employment opportunities in villages.
In a paradigm shift from earlier water supply programmes, Jal Jeevan Mission focuses on water service delivery and not just building water supply infrastructure. The motto of the Jal Jeevan Mission is ‘no one is left out’, thus ensuring every household irrespective of its socio-economic status, gets tap water supply. Jal Jeevan Mission strives for the freedom of mothers and sisters from centuries old drudgery of fetching water for household, and improving their health, education and socio- economic condition. The Mission is bringing ‘ease of living and adding pride and dignity to rural families.
Under the Jal Jeevan Mission, quality-affected villages, Aspirational districts, SC/ST majority villages, water-scarce areas and Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojna (SAGY) villages are prioritized for providing tap water supply. In last 24 months, tap water supply has increased four-fold from 24 lakh (7.17%) to about 1.37 Crore (40%) households in 117 Aspirational districts. Similarly, more than 1.15 Crore households (38%) have been provided with tap water supply in 61 districts affected by Japanese Encephalitis-Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (JE-IES). Prior to announcement of JJM, only 8 lakh homes (2.64%) in JE-AES affected districts had tap water supply. In case, the building of surface water-based systems takes time in quality affected areas, as an interim measure, community water purification plants have been installed to provide safe water @ of 8-10 lpcd to every household.
To ensure health and well-being of children by providing clean tap water in schools and anganwadi centres in the country, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi announced a 100-days campaign, which was launched by the Union Minister of Jal Shakti, Shri Gajendra Singh Shekhawat on 2nd October, 2020. So far, in a short span of 16 months, 8.47 lakh schools (82%) and 8.67 lakh (78%) anganwadi centres across the country have been provided with potable tap water supply for drinking & cooking mid-day meals, handwashing and use in toilets. 93 thousand rainwater harvesting facilities and 1.08 lakh grey water reuse structures have been developed in schools across the country. Andaman & Nicobar Island, Andhra Pradesh, D&NH and D&D, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Puducherry, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Uttarakhand have made provision of tap water in every school. Central Government has asked the States to ensure provision of clean tap water supply in the remaining schools and anganwadi centres at the earliest to ensure better health, improved sanitation and hygiene for children.
Jal Jeevan Mission is a ‘bottom up’ approach where community plays a vital role from planning to implementation, management, operation and maintenance. To achieve this, Village Water & Sanitation Committee (VWSC)/ Pani Samiti are being constituted and strengthened; Village Action Plan are developed through community engagement; Implementation Support Agencies (ISAs) are engaged to support village communities in programme implementation and create awareness among people. So far about 4.70 lakh VWSCs (Pani Samitis) have been constituted and more than 3.83 lakh Village Action Plans have been prepared across India.
To ensure transparency and accountability in implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission, all information about Jal Jeevan Mission is in public domain and the JJM dashboard can be accessed at https://ejalshakti.gov.in/jjmreport/JJMIndia.aspx
