About the Jal Jeevan Mission:
- Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) was launched in 2019 and is planned to have Functional Household Tap Connections (FHTC) installed in every rural household, supplying each household with 55 litres of water per person per day.
- It comes under the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Jal Shakti Ministry.
- The fund ratio shared between the Centre and the State:
- for Himalayan (Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh) and the North-Eastern States is 90:10;
- for Union-Territories, it is 100:0; and
- For the rest of the states, it is 50:50.
- It is mainly concentrated on areas such as substantial information, education, and communication, focused on a community-based approach.
- This mission will also concentrate on source sustainability measures, such as recharge and reuse through greywater management, water conservation, and rainwater harvesting.
- As per the survey reports, Only 5% of the total, about one crore households out of nearly 19.5 crore households where work hasn’t even begun, are targeted under the scheme.
- There is a system of ‘certification’ wherein the gram panchayats in a village which district and block level authorities report as fully connected call a quorum, and upload a video attesting to the veracity of the claim.
- There are two mechanisms for independent verification:
- Independent audit agency that conducts a survey by preparing a representative sample and interviewing respondents on whether the installed water connections are actually delivering water to their satisfaction.
- National WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) experts who appraise a section of villages on the quality of services provided.
- Only 58,357 villages have been so ‘certified’ of the nearly 1,68,000 villages that are reported as ‘Har Ghar Jal’ where all houses have tap water, suggesting that the gap between reported and verified connections is wide.
- States like Punjab (99.9%), Himachal Pradesh (97.2%), and Bihar (96%) are nearing to fulfil the Har Ghar Jal motto.
- The broad objectives of the Mission are:
- To provide FHTC to every rural household.
- To prioritise provision of FHTCs in quality affected areas, villages in drought prone and desert areas, Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY) villages, etc.
- To provide functional tap connections to Schools, Anganwadi centres, GP buildings, Health centres, wellness centres and community buildings.
- To monitor functionality of tap connections.
- To promote and ensure voluntary ownership among local community by way of contribution in cash, kind, and/ or labour and voluntary labour (shramdaan),
- To assist in ensuring sustainability of water supply system, i.e., water source, water supply infrastructure, and funds for regular O&M.
- To empower and develop human resources in the sector such that the demands of construction, plumbing, electrical, water quality management, water treatment, catchment protection, O&M, etc. are taken care of in short and long term.
- To bring awareness to the various aspects and significance of safe drinking water and involvement of stakeholders in manner that makes water everyone's business.
