Major constraints in implementing Jal Jeevan Mission: Parl panel report

At least 17 statesstill face “major constraints and problems” in implementing the Jal Jeevan Mission, a marquee programme to connect every rural household with a tap-water connection, slowing its progress, a parliamentary standing committee said in a report tabled in both houses on Tuesday. The standing committee on water resources said in the report that central authorities overseeing the countrywide project, which requires heavy engineering to lay pipes from water sources to doorsteps, assured the panel that “regular review meetings at highest level” with states along with field visits were being undertaken to speed up processes in laggard states. “For expeditious implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission in 2025-26, an amount of ₹67,000 crore has now been proposed by Ministry of Finance,” the panel’s report said, quoting the reply. According to the report, 30.9 million households across states have yet to get pipe infrastructure and “more than 99.5% of such households are concentrated in 17 states and Union territories.” When Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the programme in August 2019, only one-sixth of India’s roughly 192 million households across 600,000 villages had a functional water tap.