jul 10: Union Minister of Jal Shakti, Shri Gajendra Singh Shekhawat held discussion with Lieutenant Governor (LG) of Jammu & Kashmir, Shri Girish Chandra Murmu regarding implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission in the Union Territory (UT), through video conferencing today. Government of India is committed to provide assured basic services to the people living in rural areas of the country with focus on improving their living standard. Drinking water supply is a service delivery, wherein the quantity, quality of water supplied and periodicity of water supply has to be ensured for which the flagship programme, Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) is under implementation. The objective of the Mission is universal coverage i.e. every family in the village gets tap water connection in their household.
Jammu & Kashmir is planning 100% coverage by 2022 to accomplish the ambitious target of providing tap connection to every rural household of the UT. During the current year, the UT plans for 100% coverage of all 5,000 villages of 3 districts i.e. Gandharbal, Srinagar and Raisi. In this context, the central Minister had a detailed discussion on the progress of the mission in the UT with the LG.
Emphasizing the importance of the mission to improve the lives of rural people, central Minister stressed on retrofitting and augmentation of existing water supply schemes and urged to start this work in ‘campaign mode’ to provide household tap connections from existing public stand-posts. The LG assured expeditious implementation of the mission in the UT so as to achieve the target of providing household tap connections in rural areas in time-bound manner.
Out of 18.17 lakh rural households in the UT of Jammu & Kashmir, only 7.96 lakh are provided with tap connections. Jammu & Kashmir plans to provide tap connections in 2.32 lakh households during 2020-21. In 2020-21, ₹ 681.77 Crore have been allocated and including UT share there is assured availability of ₹ 923 Crore. UT is eligible for additional allocation based on physical and financial performance. Minister Shri Shekhawat reiterated the commitment of Union Government to provide all assistance to the UT to achieve this goal. For Jal Jeevan Mission, funds are provided by Government of India based on the output in terms of tap connections provided and the utilization of available funds.
Union Minister further emphasized on preparation of village action plans as well as constitution of village water and sanitation committee/ Paani Samiti as a sub-committee of Gram Panchayat with minimum 50% women members, responsible for planning, designing, implementing and operating & maintaining of in-village water supply infrastructure. All villages have to prepare Village Action Plan (VAP) which essentially will comprise of development/ augmentation of drinking water sources, water supply, grey-water management and operation and maintenance component. Out of 6,877, village action plans for 1,800 villages have been prepared. In all villages, IEC campaign along with community mobilization needs to be taken up to make Jal Jeevan Mission truly a people’s movement.
It was highlighted that all drinking water sources need to be tested once for chemical parameters and twice for bacteriological contamination (pre and post monsoon) every year. Further, it was requested for training of at least 5 persons, preferably women, in every village for surveillance of water quality through field test kits (FTKs) to be ensured. The UT was asked for NABL accreditation of all laboratories in next few months.
It’s the endeavour of the Government to provide tap connections in rural households on priority basis during prevailing CoVid-19 situation, so that rural people don’t have to go through the hardship of fetching water from public stand-posts.
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