Why in news?
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has recently released the operational guidelines of Jal Jeevan Mission which is centre Govt’s initiative to provide Functional Household Tap Connections to every rural household by 2024.
Details
- Out of 17.87 crore rural households in the country about 14.6 crore which accounts for 81.67 percent are yet to have household tap connections for water.
- The Jal Jeevan Scheme will be implemented through institutional mechanism at four levels – national, state, district and gram panchayat or its sub committees.
- Women will play a bigger role in this scheme and the Paani Samitis or the user group will decide about the user fee for sustainability of the scheme.
Nodal Ministry
Ministry of Jal Shakthi
Implications
- Supply of water to all households is a basic necessity
- Reduction in water borne diseases which was due to due to consumption of substandard water
Challenges
- Critical situation of Decrease in ground water table .
- Water demand and supply is a miss match
- Contamination of local ground level sources of water like, ponds lakes and wells.
- Sustaining the provision of water to all households is a challenge, not just starting it.
Way forward:
- Integrated water management Programme from school level.
- Jan andolan for Conservation of water,
- Curb ground water and surface water pollution
- Stopping the over exploitation of ground water
- Ground water mapping, using GIS enabled systems, use of ICT to track the availability of water should be done by government.
