95 done, 100 districts soon to have 100% rural piped water connections

New Delhi, Jan 26 (IANS) With 100 per cent rural households of three districts of Gujarat getting piped water connection, the Ministry of Jal Shakti's flagship programme, 'Har Ghar Jal' under the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) has achieved a new milestone of 95 district of saturation coverage, soon to be 100 districts.

"Of the 95 districts, 14 districts are from Punjab and 10 districts from Gujarat. Interestingly, Punjab's eight districts and Gujarat's four have achieved this milestone in merely 25 days of this year," statistics from the Ministry of Jal Shakti said.

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 at 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.

"It means we have already achieved 98.57 per cent and we shall soon achieve 100 per cent saturation," an official said.

Union Minister for Jal Shakti, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, said: "Provision of piped drinking water to every household will not only make the life of women easier but, will also ensure healthy and prosperous lives to all the families."

In August 2019, less than 17 per cent of the population, i.e., less than 3.24 lakh crore families were getting piped drinking water and in merely 29 months, almost 8.46 lakh crore families are now getting it.