New Delhi [India]: The Union Government’s ‘Jal Jeevan Mission’ is progressing smoothly and the tap water connections provided to households more than doubled in the first two years, said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday (April 9).
Started in August 2019, when the BJP came to power, the mission is aimed at providing safe and adequate drinking water through individual household tap connections by 2024 to all households in rural India.
“At the time when BJP came to power in 2019, only 16.75 per cent of households had tap water connections. Within two years of the commencement of the mission, the number has significantly gone up to 48.62 per cent. It has more than doubled,” said BJP national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi while addressing a press conference in New Delhi.
He added that the government has successfully provided clean drinking water connections to 1 crore 40 lakh households.
He said nearly 16 per cent of the world’s population lives in India, adding that there are only four per cent of drinking water sources.
“Keeping this in mind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made a visionary plan in the form of ‘Jal Jeevan Mission’,” Trivedi said.
The BJP leader also informed that in the Budget of 2021-2022, Rs 40,000 crore was allocated to this scheme, and in 2022-2023, Rs 60,000 crore.
The government has successfully provided tap water connections to 1.5 lakh villages in 107 districts across the country. About 17 lakh 29,000 schools and Anganwadi centres have been equipped with tap water, Trivedi said.
To provide drinking water to 4,82,000 villages, 482,000 committees have been formed, he said.
The Prime Minister, he said, started Krishi Sinchayee Yojana, a scheme for water conservation and its management.
Highlighting the country’s important water projects, the BJP leader said that Himachal Pradesh’s Renukaji Dam project and Lakhwar Multipurpose Dam in Uttarakhand are the two major national projects in which 90 per cent share is of the Centre.
These projects, he said, will fulfil the water requirements of six states of north India: Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan. “Both the availability of water in Yamuna and the level and quality of water will improve,” he added.
The government has allocated Rs 44,605 crore for the Ken-Betwa Inter-Linking Project in this financial year’s budget.
“The objective of this scheme is that 9.08 lakh hectares of land will be available for irrigation and availability of drinking water will be ensured to 62,00,000 people. With this project, the hydel power, solar power along with 103 mega hydropower and 27 mega power solar power will be ensured,” Trivedi said.
Across the country, the BJP leader said, five river link projects are nearing its completion. “In relation to this, discussions are on with the concerned states and the projects will run with consent of the state,” he said. (ANI)
