VISAKHAPATNAM: Of the 95.69 lakh rural households in Andhra Pradesh, 54 lakh homes were provided with water tap connections by March 31, 2022. About 2.26 lakh more houses have so far got these connections in this fiscal, leaving nearly 39 lakh or 40% of the total households of the state out of this transition.
In fact, Andhra Pradesh’s tap connection coverage was limited to some 32% before the rollout of Jal Jeevan Mission in August 2019. The number of households having tap connections has almost doubled in just the last three years. The key objective of Jal Jeevan Mission being implemented by the Union government is to provide piped water supply for all the households by 2024 with minimum service level of 55 litres per capita per day.
Now, the state government aims to complete the remaining works by 2024 through various measures such as augmentation of water sources and development of supply infrastructure and water treatment plants in villages.
The water supply department has also proposed to provide these tap connections in the Jagananna housing colonies currently being developed across the state. For all this to happen, sanctions have been accorded to the tune of 18,932 crore.
The state government will also cover all schools, Anganwadi centres and residential schools under Jal Jeevan Mission.
Tap connections in these institutions will provide them with water for drinking, cooking mid-day meals, hand washing, and use in toilets.
According to Jal Jeevan Mission officials, assured tap water supply in homes relieves people, especially women and young girls, from fetching water from far-off places. This will help reduce their age-old drudgery. The newfound time can be used for income generation activities, learning new skills, supporting children’s education, etc.
A workshop on implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission was conducted in Visakhapatnam on Tuesday. Speaking on this occasion, director, National Jal Jeevan Mission, Pradeep Singh said that 108 districts in the country achieved 100% household tap coverage.
“JJM is being implemented as a decentralised and community-managed programme. The mission follows a bottom-up approach. The works have started in the majority of the villages of Andhra Pradesh. The motto of Jal Jeevan Mission is that ‘no one is left out’,” said Pradeep Singh.
Every functional tap connection will be linked with the Aadhaar number of the head of the household. And each asset created under this Mission will be geo-tagged.
