Only 29.91% rural households in Karnataka have piped water supply

Just 29.91 per cent of rural households in Karnataka have piped drinking water connection against the national average of 36.83 per cent, Union Ministry of Jal Shakti said in Parliament on Monday.

As per the rural households piped drinking water connection data provided by the ministry, of the total 91.19 lakh rural households only 27.27 lakh (29.91 per cent) houses have piped drinking water supply in Karnataka.

Among the 19.19 crore rural households in the country, a total of 7.06 crore ( 36.83 per cent) households have piped water connections.

As per Jal Shakti Ministry, Karnataka is in the 19th position among all states and union territories in India in providing drinking water supply to individual households while Goa and Telangana are in the top with 100 per cent coverage followed by Andaman and Nicobar at 98.29 per cent.

In Karnataka, at 56.98 per cent, the Mandya district stood first in providing piped water to households with 2.20 lakh houses having water connection against a total of 3.87 lakh households. It is followed by Dakshina Kannada with 52.57 per cent coverage (1.52 lakh households got water connection against total 2.89 households). Dharwad and Koppal are other two districts that have 45.53 per cent and 43.07 per cent coverage, respectively.

Uttara Kannada is the worst among all districts in the state with just 8.86 per cent coverage as it provided water supply to 23,721 houses against a total of 2.67 lakh houses in the district. Yadgir is another district with poor performance as just 34,194 houses have water connection against total od 2.22 lakh houses followed by Hassan with just 15.95 per cent coverage as against of the total 4.19 lakh households only 66,859 houses have piped water connection.

Interestingly, Bengaluru Rural district has just 19.28 per cent coverage (of the total 1.77 lakh households only 34,245 houses water connection) and Bengaluru Urban district 20.51 per cent coverage with water provided to only 61,263 houses of the 2.98 lakh households. Chikkaballapur, Vijayapur, Bidar, Kalaburagi are other districts, which have poor progress in providing water connection to houses. Even districts including Davangere, Kolar, Chikkaballapur and Tumakuru, Chitradurga and Dhrward have made poor progress in utilising funds under centrally-sponsored Jal Jeevan Mission aimed at providing water connection to rural households.

Dakshina Kannada, Gadag, Ballari, Hassan and Haveri have made progress in providing piped water supply to rural households utilising funds under the Jal Jeevan Mission.

The Jal Shakti Ministry launched Jal Jeevan Mission in August 2019 to provide 55 litres of potable water per person per day to every rural household in the country by 2024.