New Delhi: The Consultative Committee meeting of Ministry of Jal Shakti was held today under the chairmanship of Minister of Jal Shakti, Shri Gajendra Singh Shekhawat. Minister of State for Jal Shakti, Shri Ratan Lal Kataria was also present. 18 Members of Parliament attended the meeting and actively participated in the discussion held on progress of Jal Jeevan Mission. The MPs appreciated the efforts of National Jal Jeevan Mission for the progress made for provision of safe drinking water in rural households through tap water connections despite Covid-19 pandemic and gave suggestions for faster implementation of the mission works in their constituencies.
Members of Parliaments can play important role in mobilizing the local community for their active participation to make Jal Jeevan Mission truly a people’s movement, i.e. ‘Jan Andolan’. States/ UTs have been issued an advisory in this regard to ensure participation of MPs in the programme. Provision in this regard has been made under Jal Jeevan Mission like their participation in the District Water & Sanitation Mission (DWSM) meetings, to get involved in activities like quarterly review of progress in districts; promote community engagement and participation; prioritize convergence of MPLAD funds & other centrally sponsored programme funds; resolution of bottlenecks, etc. Their participation will help in overall implementation of the mission in it’s true spirit.
A modern online ‘JJM – Integrated Information Management Systems (IIMS)’ has been set up for day-to-day planning, implementation, monitoring and reporting of the progress. This dashboard is in public domain and one can see the overall progress at the national, State/ UT, district and village level. To ensure transparency and modern fund management, use of Public Finance Management System (PFMS) has been made compulsory under JJM.
To improve the lives of people in rural areas and enhance their ‘ease of living’, Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) was announced by Hon’ble Prime Minister on 15th August, 2019 to be implemented in partnership with States with the aim to provide tap water connection to every rural household of the country by 2024.At the time of announcement of JJM on 15th August 2019, out of total 18.93 Crore rural households, 3.23 Crore rural households (17%) of the country had tap water connections. Since then, over 3.47 Crore families living in rural areas have been provided with tap water connections in their homes. Now, out of total 19.18 Crore rural households, more than 1/3rd (35%) i.e. 6.70 Crore rural families of the country have assured potable tap water supply in their homes, improving their quality of life and enhancing ‘ease of living’.
Following the principle of equity and inclusiveness in assured drinking water supply to every home in villages, thus ‘no one is left out’ principle, as on today, 52 districts in the country spread across Gujarat (5), Telangana (32), Himachal Pradesh (3), Jammu & Kashmir (2), Goa (2), Haryana (5) and Punjab (3) have become ‘Har Ghar Jal districts’, i.e. all rural households have tap water supply. There is a healthy competition among States/ UTs to make provision of tap water supply to every household. Goa has become the first State in the country to provide tap water connections to all rural households of the State followed by Telangana. As reported, all households in 52 districts, 663 Blocks, and about 76 thousand villages, have started getting tap water supply.
Under JJM, aim is to ensure that that every family irrespective of its socio-economic condition, has piped water supply in their home. The principle is ‘no one is left out’ and poorest of the poor, weaker and marginalized sections of society get assured potable drinking water in their homes.
National Jal Jeevan Mission in partnership with the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) has launched a ‘Smart water supply measurement and monitoring system’ for water supply in rural areas via an ICT Grand Challenge to harness the vibrant IoT eco-systems of India.
Further, an innovation challenge in partnership with the Department of Promotion of Industry & Internal Trade (DPIIT) launched to develop portable water quality testing devices for testing of water samples. With an objective to bring an innovative, modular, and cost-effective solution to develop portable devices that can be used at the village level as well as in households to test the drinking water quality instantaneously and easily.
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