New Delhi: The central government has allotted Rs 60,000 crore to cover 3.8 crore households in FY 2022-23 under ‘Har Ghar Jal’, ‘Nal Se Jal Scheme’, launched in August 2019.
She said, “Measures have included programmes that have provided housing, electricity, cooking gas and access to water.” Giving more details, the Finance Minister said that the current coverage of ‘Har Ghar Jal’ and ‘Nal Se Jal’ is 8.7 crore, out of which 5.5 crore households were provided tap water in the last 2 years itself.
Nearly six crore rural households have been provided tap water connection despite constraints imposed by the pandemic under the ‘Har Ghar Jal’ as part of the Jal Jeevan Mission since the scheme has been launched.
The President of India also lauded this scheme during his joint address to Parliament and said, “efforts made under ‘Har Ghar Jal’ and the Jal Jeevan Mission have brought about a huge difference in the lives of the people, with nearly six crore rural households provided tap water connection. It has hugely benefited the women, sisters and daughters in our villages.”
The government is also working for rain water conservation, and special campaigns are being implemented for creation of rain water harvesting infrastructure and restoration of traditional water sources in the country.
The Ministry of Jal Shakti’s flagship programme, ‘Har Ghar Jal’ under the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) has achieved a new milestone of 95 districts of saturation coverage, soon to be 100 districts.
“Of the 95 districts, 14 are from Punjab and 10 from Gujarat. In Gujarat, Patan district has become the ‘Har Ghar Jal’ district in January this year besides Dang, Junagarh and Gir Somnath. Before this, Anand, Botaal, Gandhinagar, Mehsana, Porbandar and Vadodara have been provided with the piped drinking water connections so far. In these 10 districts, piped water connection has been provided to each of the 23,85,268 houses, taking the total to 83,21,000 houses, which in turn is 91 per cent of the state’s total households, 91,77,000. When the Jal Jeevan Mission was announced in August 2019, Gujarat’s 65,16,000 households were provided with drinking water supply,” a statement from the Ministry said on Tuesday.
In Punjab, all rural households in 14 out of 22 districts have been provided with piped drinking water. Of those, eight districts have achieved this milestone in the first 25 days of 2022, it said, adding, before the inception of JJM, nearly 16,78,000 households in the state were provided with drinking water and now, the numbers have increased to 33,90,000 households out of a total of 34,40,000.
During presentation of the Union Budget 2022-23, Nirmala Sitharaman said that since 2014, the government has focussed on empowerment of citizens, especially the poor and the marginalized.
–IANS
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