Manipur's rural households to get tap water connection by March 2022

New Delhi: In a leg-up for the marquee Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM), Manipur plans to provide tap water connections to all rural households by 2021-22.

This comes in the backdrop of India’s 38% rural population been covered under the JJM, with 21.4% rural households been provided with tap water connection since the scheme’ launch in 2019.

“ 2021. 1.96 lakh new tap water connections were provided in 2020-21 despite Covid- 19 pandemic. The State has planned for 100% saturation by 2021-22 under Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) by providing tap water connections to remaining 2.25 lakh households,” the ministry of Jal Shakti has said in a statement.

The scheme aims to ensure assured tap water supply or ‘Har Ghar Jal’ to all rural households by 2024. Four crore households have been provided with tap water connections since the scheme’ announcement on 15 August 2019. Several states including Haryana, Odisha, Sikkim and Tripura have articulated their commitment to provide tap water connections to all rural households before 2024.

“In 2020-21, Manipur was amongst the seven States, which received performance incentive grant under the JJM for better performance. The other six States were Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Sikkim, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh,” the statement added.

In July 2019, the government had formed a new ministry, Jal Sakti, to address all water issues in the country. The Jal Shakti ministry was formed by integrating it with other existing ministries, such as water resources and the ministry of drinking water and sanitation. The larger aim is to work with state governments to ensure ‘Har Ghar Jal’ to all rural households by 2024.

“The State of Odisha has 85.66 lakh rural households, out of which tap connections are provided to 23.25 lakh households i.e. 27.15% of rural population in Odisha receives water through taps. When Jal Jeevan Mission started on 15th August 2019, only 3.63% of the people in Odisha had access to tap water,” the statement added.

This comes in the backdrop of water supply getting prominence in the union budget presented in February, wherein an outlay of Rs2.87 trillion was announced for the launch of the Jal Jeevan Mission Urban. The aim is to supply water to 4,378 urban local bodies with 2.68 crore tap connections.