E-Paper
Over 55% tribal households covered under Jal Jeevan Mission: Centre
Nearly 55% of Scheduled Tribe rural households in the country have been provided with a tap water connection under the Jal Jeevan Mission till July 26.
Nearly 55% of Scheduled Tribe rural households in the country have been provided with a tap water connection under the Jal Jeevan Mission till July 26, Union minister of state for Jal Shakti, Prahlad Singh Patel, said in a written reply in Rajya Sabha on Monday.
Of the country’s 21.7 million tribal rural households, 12 million have been provided tap water connections since the launch of the mission by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2019, data cited by the minister show.
The flagship scheme aims to connect each of India’s 194.2 million rural households with tap water by 2024-end. Under the mission, each family is given 55 litres of clean water per day per person.
Updated figures from the programme’s data dashboard show that, as on July 31, nearly 65% or 126.8 million households had been provided with tap water. Of these, 94.5 million households, or 58%, were provided connections since the launch of the mission. A baseline survey showed that less than 17% or 32.3 million households had a tap connection in 2019.
“Under the Mission, 30% weightage is assigned for difficult terrains…and 10% weightage is assigned for population residing in SC/ST dominated areas, while allocating the fund to prioritize the coverage in these areas,” the minister said in his reply to a question by BJP MP Kavita Patidar.
Under the programme, fund-sharing pattern between the Centre and states as well as Union territories (UTs) is 100% for UTs without a legislature, 90:10 for northeastern states and UTs with a legislature and 50:50 for all other states.
The minister said details of tribal households with tap connections were not “maintained centrally”, implying that the data regarding tribal households had been generated by state governments.
According to a written reply in Rajya Sabha on July 24, the minister cited data that showed Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Puducherry and Punjab had achieved 100% coverage under the programme.
Among some large states, Andhra Pradesh had covered 70% households so far, while Karnataka had reached coverage of 68%. Uttar Pradesh had connected 52% households and Madhya Pradesh had covered 51%. Maharashtra’s coverage stood at 51% households, while Rajasthan’s was 41% and West Bengal’s 34%. Bihar has achieved 96% coverage so far, while in Chhattisgarh, the coverage was 53%, the data showed.
“States which have any financial constraint now have an additional fund to dip into with allocations by the Finance Commission,” said Raja Ram Moria of Dewas-based Samaj Pragati Sahayog. He was referring to the ₹26,900 crore assured fund available under the 15th Finance Commission as grants to rural local bodies for water and sanitation projects
According to recently released data, the programme has so far linked 84.2% of all government schools in the country numbering 865,000 with a tap water connection, while 80% of anganwadi centres totaling 894,000 have been covered.
