24-Mar-2022: National Rural Drinking Water Mission

Since August, 2019 Government of India in partnership with States, is implementing Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) after subsuming erstwhile National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) to make provision of potable water to every rural household through tap water connection, by 2024.The estimated outlay of the mission is Rs. 3.60 lakh Crore, out of which Central share is Rs. 2.08  lakh Crore.

At the time of announcement of Jal Jeevan Mission, out of 18.93 Crore rural households, 3.23 Crore (17%) households were reported to have tap water connections. So far, more than 6 Crore (31%) rural households have been provided with tap water connections in last 30 months. Thus, as of date, out of 19.32 Crore rural households in the country, 9.24Crore (48%) households are reported to have tap water supply in their homes.

The key features of the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) are to make provision of potable water to every rural household through tap water connection at a service level of 55 litre per capita per day (lpcd), of prescribed quality (BIS:10500), on regular and long-term basis.

Number of steps have been taken to plan and implement JJM in the whole country with speed, inter alia, which includes joint discussion and finalization of saturation plan and annual action plan (AAP) of States/ UTs, regular review of implementation, workshops/ conferences/ webinars for capacity building, training, knowledge sharing, field visits by multi-disciplinary team to provide technical support, etc. Detailed Operational Guideline for the implementation of JJM; Margdarshika for Gram Panchayats & VWSCs to provide safe drinking water in rural households and Guidelines on a special campaign to provide piped water supply in anganwadi centres, ashramshalas and schools have been shared with States/ UTs, to facilitate planning and implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission. For online monitoring, JJM–Integrated Management Information System (IMIS) and JJM–Dashboard has been put in place. Provision has also been made for transparent online financial management through Public Financial Management System (PFMS).

10-Feb-2022: Drinking Water to All

Since August, 2019, Government of India in partnership with States is implementing Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) after subsuming erstwhile National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP), to make provision of potable water at the service level of 55 litre per capita per day (lpcd) to every rural household through tap water connection, by 2024. At the time of announcement of Jal Jeevan Mission, out of 18.93 Crore rural households, 3.23 Crore (17%) households were reported to have tap water connections. So far, 5.72 Crore (29.63%) rural households have been provided with tap water connections in last 29 months. Thus, as of date, out of 19.28 Crore rural households in the country, 8.95 Crore (46.41%) households are reported to have tap water supply in their homes.

Further, as reported by States/ UTs, as on 07.02.2022, out of 17.01 lakh rural habitations of the country, 13.22 lakh (77.68%) habitations having 77.90% population have provision of potable drinking water with supply level of more than 40 litre per capita per day (lpcd) and 3.44 lakh (20.24%) habitations having 20.39% population with supply level of less than 40 lpcd with sources at a reasonable distance and 0.35 lakh (2.08%) rural habitations having 1.71% population are reported to have water quality issues in drinking water sources.

The year-wise timelines finalized by States/ UTs for making provision of tap water supply to every rural household is as under:

In Goa, Telangana, Haryana, Puducherry, A & N Islands, Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu; provision for tap water supply to all rural households has been made.

Out of Rs. 45,011 Crore allocated for Jal Jeevan Mission in 2021-22, an amount of   Rs. 28,681.89Crore (64%) has been released to the eligible States/ UTs so far. Further, in 2022-23, an amount of Rs.60,000 Crore as Gross Budgetary Support (GBS) have been proposed for the mission. After approval of the budget, the State/ UT-wise allocation is decided as per approved allocation criteria in the beginning of the financial year.

3-Feb-2022: National Rural Drinking Water Programme

During the 12th Five Year Plan, States/ UTs had targeted to provide safe drinking water at reasonable distance to 5.56 lakh partially covered with service level of less than 40 lpcd potable water and quality-affected water quality issues in ground water sources rural habitations and as reported, achieved the coverage in 5.92 lakh rural habitations across the country. State/ UT–wise details of targets and achievement made therein during the 12th Five Year Plan period is annexed.

Since August, 2019 Government of India in partnership with States, is implementing Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) after subsuming erstwhile National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) to make provision of potable water to every rural household through tap water connection, by 2024.

A number of steps have been taken to plan and implement JJM in the whole country with speed, inter alia, which includes joint discussion and finalization of saturation plan and annual action plan (AAP) of States/ UTs, regular review of implementation, workshops/ conferences/ webinars for capacity building, training, knowledge sharing, field visits by multi-disciplinary team to provide technical support, etc. A detailed Operational Guideline for the implementation of JJM; Margdarshika for Gram Panchayats & VWSCs to provide safe drinking water in rural households; and Guidelines on a special campaign to provide piped water supply in anganwadi centres, ashramshalas and schools have been shared with States/ UTs to facilitate planning and implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission. For online monitoring, JJM–Integrated Management Information System (IMIS) and JJM–Dashboard has been put in place. Provision has also been made for transparent online financial management through Public Financial Management System (PFMS).

10-Nov-2017: Cabinet approves continuation and Restructuring of National Rural Drinking Water Programme

The Union Cabinet has accorded its approval for continuation and restructuring of National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) to make it outcome-based, competitive and better monitored with increased focus on sustainability (functionality) of schemes to ensure good quality service delivery to the rural population.

A sum of Rs. 23,050 crore has been approved for the programme for the Fourteenth Finance Commission (FFC) period 2017-18 to 2019-20.  The programme will cover all the Rural Population across the country. The restructuring will make the programme flexible, result-oriented, competitive, and will enable the Ministry towards to reach the goal of increasing coverage of sustainable Piped Water Supply.

The details of the decision are as follows:

1. National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) is to be continued co-terminus with the 14th Finance Commission cycle till March 2020.
2. With the restructuring of the NRDWP, there will be 2% earmarking of funds for Japanese Encephalitis (JE) /Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) affected areas.
3. A new Sub-programme under NRDWP viz. National Water Quality Sub-Mission (NWQSM) which has been started by the Ministry  of Drinking Water and Sanitation in February 2017 will address the urgent need for providing clean drinking water in about 28000 Arsenic & Fluoride affected habitations (already identified). As per estimates, about Rs. 12,500 crore as Central share will be required over 4 years i.e. up to March, 2021. This is being funded from the allocation under NRDWP.
4. Pre-financing for the agreed schemes, to the extent of half of the second instalment amount, will be made by the State Governments, which will be reimbursed later on from the central funding. If the State(s) fails to claim this amount before 30th November in the financial year, then, these funds will become a part of the common pool, which will be released to the high performing States, which have already pre-financed the requisite Government of India share on a first come first serve basis.
5. Other half of second instalment of funds will be released to the States based on functionality status of completed piped water supply schemes, which will be evaluated through a third party.
6. The Cabinet has approved Rs. 23,050 crore for the programme for the FFC period 2017-18 to 2019-20.

The NWQSM aims to cover all rural population in Arsenic/Fluoride affected habitations with clean drinking water on a sustainable basis by March 2021. States have been given more flexibility in utilization of NRDWP funds by reducing the number of components under the programme.

As per the Integrated Management Information System (IMIS) of the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, about 77% of rural habitations in India have achieved a fully covered (FC) status (40 litres per capita per day) and 56% of the rural population have access to tap water through public stand posts within which 16.7% have household connections.

Background: The NRDWP was started in 2009, with a major emphasis on ensuring sustainability (source) of water availability in terms of potability, adequacy, convenience, affordability and equity. NRDWP is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme with 50.50 fund sharing between the Centre and the States. Over the years, learning from the success achieved and the deficiencies felt during the implementation of NRDWP, certain modifications are needed in existing guidelines and procedure of release of funds to the States for making the programme more outcome-oriented and competitive.

Keeping in view the need to make the NRDWP more result-oriented, incentivize competition amongst States and focused on sustainability, a series of discussions were held with States, various stakeholders / domain experts / international institutions and NITI Aayog, some amendments in the guidelines of the programme have been introduced. These are giving more flexibility to the states in utilization of NRDWP funds by reducing the number of components under the programme. Focus on piped water supply, increase level of service delivery, thrust on coverage of water quality affected habitations (National Water Quality Sub-Mission to tackle Arsenic & Fluoride affected habitations, JE / AES areas), coverage of Open Defecation Free (ODF) declared villages, SAGY GPs, Ganga GPs, Integrated Action Plan (IAP) districts, Border Out Posts (BOP) with piped water supply and Institutional set up for proper O&M of water supply assets etc. have been introduced.