The Union Minister of Jal Shakti, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat chaired a webinar with all States/ UTs Ministers in-charge of rural water supply and reviewed the progress made under the Jal Jeevan Mission - a flagship program of the Union Government for providing tap water connection in every rural household by 2024. The Minister of State for Jal Shakti- Shri Rattan Lal Kataria, Secretary DDWS- Shri Pankaj Kumar, Additional Secretary & Mission Director- Shri Bharat Lal, were present in the virtual conference.Union Minister Shri Gajendra Singh Shekhawat stated that ‘Har Ghar Jal’ is not just a one-time infrastructure creating programme. It will go a long way in building the capacity of the frontline workers, empowering women and creating employment in villages. The Union Minister released the ‘drinking water quality testing, monitoring & surveillance’ framework and also launched the Water Quality Management Information System (WQMIS) of Jal Jeevan Mission. The WQMIS online portal & mobile app has a full automated data management related to water quality. (Click here to see the framework document). The Union Budget 2021-22 has witnessed a quantum increase in the budgetary provision for Jal Jeevan Mission, from Rs 11,500 crore in 2020-21 to Rs 50,011 crore in 2021-22. Shri Shekhawat rolled out the roadmap for more efficacious utilization of the nearly five-fold increased Jal Jeevan Mission’s Budget by States/UTs. Being the 3rd year, 2021-22 is a crucial year for Jal Jeevan Mission. He said that this is the time to speed up implementation, strategically create systems and processes for proper operations and maintenance for assured water supply to every household on long-term basis.
Addressing the media after the webinar, Shri Shekhawat said that since the announcement of Jal Jeevan Mission by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi from the ramparts of the Red Fort on 15th August, 2019, significant progress has been made across the country and so far, more than 3.77 Crore rural households have been provided with tap water connections. In total, more than 7 Crore rural families (36.5%) have now started getting clean water in their homes, i.e. more than 1/3rd of rural household are getting potable water through taps. Shri Shekhawat further added that every family living in 52 districts, 670 Blocks, 42,100 Panchayats and 81,123 villages are getting assured tap water supply in their homes now.The Union Jal Shakti Minister explained how despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-21, necessary groundwork for effective and efficient implementation of the mission has been laid. As the whole country is slowing trying to return to normalcy, Jal Jeevan Mission is putting in untiring efforts for ‘provision of safe drinking water in rural areas’ by providing tap connections in rural households.While addressing the august audience, Shri Rattan Lal Kataria, Minister of State for Jal Shakti recalled the times when the women of his village in Haryana were subjected to struggles and pain, due to unavailability of potable water sources near homes. Shri Kataria said that he feels proud to be the part of this mission as it is bringing a huge change in the life of rural women & children of country.The Union Budget 2021-22 has witnessed a quantum increase in the budgetary provision for Jal Jeevan Mission, from Rs 11,500 crore in 2020-21 to Rs 50,011 crore in 2021-22. Immediately following the budget announcement, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi had chaired a high-level consultation with various stakeholders from private sector, policy makers, academia, etc. to invite ideas on ways to speed up implementation of JJM in 2021-22. Today’s webinar was a follow-up of the virtual conference held on 16th February, 2021 which Prime Minister took to assess the scale and speed of the implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission program.