New Delhi, Aug 11 (UNI) Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's goal of providing 'piped water' to every family in the country by 2024, so far five crore families have benefited out of which two crore households have been linked to the scheme during a year.
The Government is working on a mission mode to achieve the Prime Minister's goal of providing 'piped water' to all 19 crore households in the country by 2024 with more than four crore 94 lakh 63 thousand houses covered under the scheme so far.
On August 15 last year, the Prime Minister announced, from the Red Fort,Jal Jeevan Mission(JJM) to provide drinking water from tap to every house in the country.
JJM aims to provide functional household tap connections (FHTCs) to every rural household of the country by the year 2024 thereby ensuring potable water supply in adequate quantity i.e. @ 55 lpcd (Litres per capita per day) of prescribed quality on long-term and regular basis.
The programme will benefit all the rural people.The government said that out of 18 crore 93 lakh 30 thousand 879 houses in thecountry, four crore 94 lakh 63 thousand 297 houses have been linked to this scheme so far.Gujarat ranked first , delivering water from tap to 66 lakh 21 thousand 821 houses while Maharashtra stood at the second place in terms of providing this facility to 53 lakh 88 thousand 428 houses.
Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh are ahead of the other states in terms of percentage. The government said that there will be no shortage of money for this work and skilled and unskilled workers unemployed due to COVID-19 will be provided employment in rural areas under this project.Under the scheme, which will provide employment to people in rural areas and solve their problems, the people of the village will also get drinking water.
A senior official associated with the scheme said that since the announcement by Mr Modi, work is being done in this direction at a rapid pace. Directions were issued in this regard by December 25 last year.Water committees were formed at the village level , which included 50 percent women members , to ensure that every household in the rural areas gets the benefit of the scheme and no family is left out from the scheme even by mistake.
A Village Action Plan was prepared at the village level to complete the mission.
The official said that the work of providing water from the taps in the village was going on even before but its pace was very slow.
However, as soon as the Prime Minister announced the plan, during the first sevenmonths, 85 lakh houses were provided with tap water.Due to COVID-19, the work of the scheme was affected in April and May this year, but soon after the coronavirus lockdown measures were eased, the work started at a fast pace and in its first phase, the work of supplying tap water to 85 lakh houses was completed under the scheme and by August 10, this number has increased to over 88 lakhs.
MORE UNI NY AR 1737/1810