Counting Every Drop: On Jal Jeevan Mission

One of the most important commitments of the Narendra Modi government is: Ensure piped water in every rural household by 2024, below Jal Jeevan MissionLed by the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, 10.2 crore rural households, or about 53% of the eligible population, now have tap water. This, the government claims, is an increase of 37 percent from 2019 when the plan was announced, where its stated objective is to ensure every rural household has at least 55 liters of potable water per person per day – meaning just one connection is not enough. The government conducts annual surveys to evaluate the success of the scheme. A recent audit by a private agency found that around 62% of rural households in India Had fully functional tap water connections within their premises. A report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Water Resources in March, based on numbers provided by the nodal Ministry of Jal Shakti, said that 46 per cent of households have such fully functional tap water connections. It is important to note that for the purposes of the survey, only 3% of rural households were surveyed by the agency for updated numbers and therefore the margin of error may be substantial and subject to the method of the survey. If the numbers are accurate, however, it represents an impressive increase in access to potable, tap water and suggests that the mission is well on its way to meeting its 2024 goal.

However, the survey revealed wide disparities in achievement. Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh, Goa and Puducherry have more than 80% of households with fully functional connections, while less than half of the households in Rajasthan, Kerala, Manipur, Tripura, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram and Sikkim have such connections. About 75% of households have access to water on all days of the week, and only 8% get water only once a week. On an average, households get water for three hours a day. In addition, the report mentions the problem of chlorine contamination. Although 93 per cent of the water samples were reportedly free from bacteriological contamination, the residual chlorine in most anganwadi centers and schools exceeded the permissible limit. The COVID-19 pandemic impeded plan progress, but with the economy now close to pre-pandemic levels, it is likely that labor and material challenges to aid plan progress have softened somewhat. The Center should liaise better with the states which are lagging behind in the target and ensure that the infrastructure created as part of the plan is long lasting and not just for meeting the election goals.