The Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) is one of the key schemes the government is hoping to showcase ahead of next year’s general elections. The aim here is to provide piped water to every rural household by 2024. In the budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman disbursed Rs 69,684 crore, an increase of 27%, as compared to Rs 54,808 crore from the revised estimates for fiscal year 2022. However, the outlay reflects the extent of work remaining. Of the targeted 193 million rural households, only 32 million had water supplies in August 2019. The JJM dashboard on the Jal Shakti Ministry’s website says that by February 2023, more than 11 crore households, or about 57% of the targeted, now have taps. Water. While this is an impressive jump in percentage points for three years, it will be difficult with only 12 months to ensure that the remaining 47% are connected. So far, only the states of Goa, Gujarat, Haryana and Telangana have reported 100% coverage of eligible households with piped water, with Punjab and Himachal Pradesh having over 97%. Barring these, only 10 other states or union territories have reported more than 60% coverage. Large, populous states such as Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan have reported only 30% coverage and Madhya Pradesh about 47%.
A fully functional tap water connection is defined as a household that receives at least 55 liters of potable water per person per day throughout the year; However, local reports suggest that despite having tap connections, many village households fall back on their local groundwater resources as the quality of the tap water supplied is inadequate. Few independent assessments of the plan exist. A sample survey of nearly 3,00,000 eligible households commissioned by the Ministry of Water Resources to assess the working of the scheme found that only three-fourths of them reported water seven days a week, and the average household received water Had been. Only three hours a day. While more than 90% of institutions such as anganwadis and schools reported access to tap water, many of them reported problems with high levels of chlorine as well as bacterial contamination. Furthermore, the current number of adoptions in homes is based on self-reporting by villages and is not verified by any third party. Some states like Bihar have stated that most of their connections were provided under state funds and not JJM. Functional, sustainable tap water is a basic need and rather than simply aiming to reach a numerical target, the government should strive to evaluate the quality of tap water in rural India, the extent of sustained adoption. While planning as a bottom-up scheme, the Center should ensure that states with the least number of adopters and largest populations are given assistance to improve numbers and not just to facilitate those states For those close to the finishing line.