278 lakh households provided tap water connections under Jal Jeevan Mission

Around 278 lakh households have been provided tap water connections under the Jal Jeevan Mission which was announced on August 15 last year, the Jal Shakti Ministry said on Wednesday.

At present 6.01 crore rural households in the country are getting potable water through taps, it said.

Eighteen districts across the country have provided tap connections to all households and states are competing with each other to ensure tap water supply to every home, it added.

The Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) in partnership with states aims to provide potable water in adequate quantity of prescribed quality on a regular and long-term basis through tap connections to every rural home in the country by 2024.

After the launch of the mission, states were requested to undertake a revalidation exercise of baseline data, according to which there are 19.05 crore rural households in the country. Out of this, 3.23 crore households were already provided tap connections. The remaining 15.81 crore households are to be provided with tap connections.

Thus, the objective is to cover approximately 16 crore households in a time-bound manner while ensuring the functionality of already provided connections, the ministry said.

This means 3.2 crore households are to be covered every year which comes to around approximately 88,000 tap connections to be provided every day.

"With this goal in mind, states/ UTs are making all out efforts to provide tap water connections in rural areas. In 2020-21, a sum of Rs 23,500 crore has been allocated for the implementation of JJM.

"Besides this, in 2020-21, 50 per cent of 15th Finance Commission Grants to Rural Local Bodies, that is Rs 30,375 crore, as tied grant will be utilised for water supply and sanitation,” it added.