Every drop is a waterfall

NEW DELHI: The Centre’s ambitious ‘Har Ghar Jal’ programme aimed at ensuring potable water connections in all rural households in the country by 2024, will most likely miss its target next year. The programme, which is part of India’s flagship Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM), might only be able to ensure 75% of rural homes have taps that deliver drinking water in the next 12 months.

Securing 80% coverage under JJM might take till December 2024.

ities cited challenges including COVID, shortage of qualified workers, and the scale of the exercise, which gained momentum in several regions only last year. Supply of materials such as cement and steel, essential to the manufacturing of pipes and connections, have been hit in the backdrop of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In fact, PM Modi had laid the foundation for the scheme in 2019, when just about 16% of rural households had tap water. It was well timed as a WHO report stated that in 2018, 36% of India’s total population, including 44% of its rural population, lacked access to improved drinking-water sources on their premises. Nearly 82 crore people living in the vicinity of 12 major river basins face “high to extreme” water stress, per World Bank data.

Keeping these metrics in mind, the ‘Har Ghar Jal’ programme targeted close to 19.5 cr rural households. But, there are 1 crore households — 5% of the total, where work has not started. Even in villages with access to some water source, it takes an average of eight months to connect all homes, working at peak performance and efficiency. As per the Jal Shakti Ministry, 63% of rural households or 9.1 crore homes have had tap water connections since 2019. Provision of potable water to rural homes is a big ticket plan of the NDA government, as a sum of Rs 3.6 lakh crore was planned as financial outlay by the Jal Jeevan Mission, with the Central government footing 50% of the bill. Planning and implementation is carried out by individual states.

The importance of piped water connections cannot be overstated. A WHO report commissioned by the government said India could potentially avert four lakh deaths from diarrhoea every year and save around 14 million DALYs (disability-adjusted life years) resulting from water-related ailments if the country manages to achieve universal rural coverage as per the Mission. One DALY represents the loss of the equivalent of one year of full health.

With regard to Tamil Nadu, the government had informed the Rajya Sabha earlier this year that 62.76% of rural households in the State have tap water supply. In fact, rural households in only two districts in Tamil Nadu, namely Ranipet and Kanchipuram achieved 100 per cent tap water supply.Collectively, 62.76 per cent of village households in the region have tap water supply.

When the Mission was launched in 2019, only 21.76 lakh (17.34 per cent) out of the total 1.25 crore rural households in the State had tap water supply. By May 2023, 59 lakh rural households were added to the roster. As per the Ministry, 57% rural households in TN now have tap water connections. In its annual action plan for 2023-24, Tamil Nadu intends to provide tap water supply to 19.26 lakh rural households and cover all rural households by December 2024.