On December 14, 2019 the Ministry of Jal Shakti, submitted its data on water supply and usage by the people in the country. As per the data, nearly 3 lakh rural habitations in the country were deprived of the govt’s minimum prescribed provision of 40 litre per capita per day (lpcd) of potable quality drinking water.
Data by Jal Ministry:
i.Target set: The aim of the Jal ministry is to achieve 55 lpcd by 2024.
ii.States facing water quality issues: The states which are currently facing water quality issues or seeing diminished supply of water are Rajasthan, West Bengal and Assam. Bihar, Punjab, Karnataka and Uttarakhand are the other States which also face the same issues.
iii.Water provision:
- Till December 2019, 81.27% rural habitations with 76.61% population have 40 lpcd of potable drinking water.
- 15.56% rural habitations having 19.69% population have less than 40 lpcd of potable water supply.
- 3.17% rural habitations having 3.69% of the population have water quality issues.
iv.Fund sharing pattern: For water supply across the nation through the 2009 launched National Rural Drinking Water Programme(NRDWP) (NRDWP-centrally sponsored programme), the fund sharing pattern between the centre and states respectively are given below:
- States: 50:50.
- Union Territories(UT): 100% for the UTs.
- Himalayan & the northeastern States: 90:10.
Expenditure by the govt:
- Since 2014: Over the past 5 years, Rs 31,569.77 crore was made available to the states since 2014, inorder to improve piped water supply in low income States. The states include Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh. The World Bank(WB) provided assistance of ₹1,185.23 crores.
- 2016: Rs 1000 crore was released for community water purification plants commissioning of PWS (Public Water Supply) schemes in arsenic/fluoride chemicals affected State.
- National Water Quality Sub-Mission(NWQSM) was launched in 2017 to provide safe drinking water. So far ₹3,690.34 crores had been released in this regard.
- Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM): In August 2019, the JJM was launched to provide potable water through Functional Household Tap Connection (FHTC) with an outlay of Rs 3.60 lakh crores.
About Ministry of Jal Shakthi:
Founded- 2019. (Preceded by Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation from 1985)
Headquarters- New Delhi.
Union Minister- Gajendra Singh Shekhawat (Constituency- Jodhpur, Rajasthan).
