According to the report released by the Ministry of Water Resources, 62% of rural households in India have fully functional tap water facility.
Important points of the report
According to a survey conducted by the Union Ministry of Water Resources to assess the functioning of the government-run “Jal Jeevan Mission”, about 62% of rural households in India have fully functioning tap water within their premises. Access information given.
Earlier in June, the central government had reported 52% of rural households having tap water connections.
According to this report it is more than 80% in Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh, Goa and Puducherry. Whereas in Rajasthan, Kerala, Manipur, Tripura, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram and Sikkim less than half of the households have such connections.
Goa, Telangana and Haryana have achieved 100% tap connectivity in all households. Union Territories such as Puducherry, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu have also provided tap water connections to 100% of their households. According to the Ministry of Water Resources, tap connectivity does not automatically mean access to regular potable water.
Access to water from a fully functioning tap is defined as a household that “has at least 55 liters of potable water per person per year throughout the year.” Nearly three-quarters of households have access to water all of the week. 8% water is received for seven days and only once a week. On an average, households get water for three hours a day, and 80% reported that their daily water requirement was met with tap connections.
The water quality in some households has also been tested and found to be within the acceptable range of pH value in 95% of the households i.e. potable water. More than half (57%) of the households sampled reported having purified water before drinking. Whereas only 3% of households reported using reverse osmosis treatment for water purification before drinking.
However, the report mentions a problem related to chlorine contamination. However 93% of the water samples were free from bacteriological contamination. The status of tap water connections was assessed by a private agency, HTA-Kantar Public and relied on a sample survey that spanned 33 states and union territories, 712 districts, 13,299 villages and 3,01,389 households. was.
About Jal Jeevan Mission
Launched in the year 2019, the mission envisages supplying 55 liters of water per person per day to each rural household by the year 2024 through ‘Functional Household Tap Connections’ (FHTC).
The objective of Jal Jeevan Mission is to develop water as a movement, so that it can be made a priority of the people. This program comes under the “Ministry of Jal Shakti”. Water committees plan, implement, manage, operate and maintain village water supply systems. They consist of 10-15 members, of which at least 50% are women members and other members of Self Help Groups, Accredited Social and Health Workers (ASHA), Anganwadis, teachers etc. The committees use all available village resources. Together they prepare a one-time village action plan. Before implementing the scheme it is approved by the Gram Sabha.
