Since the launch of the Jal Jeevan Mission in 2019, five crore households have got water connection and now tap water is reaching every household in about 1.25 lakh villages, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday, asserting that today’s India has done more work in just two years than what was done in seven decades.
Speaking after interacting with gram panchayats and pani samitis/village water and sanitation committees (VWSC) on the Jal Jeevan Mission, Mr. Modi said the mission is not just about bringing water to people but it is also a decentralisation movement that is village and women-driven.
“From the time of Independence till 2019, only three crore households in our country had access to tap water. Since the launch of the Jal Jeevan Mission in 2019, five crore households were provided with water connections,” he said.
“Today, water is reaching every household in about 1.25 lakh villages in about 80 districts of the country. That is, today’s India has done more work in just two years than what was done in the last seven decades,” he added.
In aspirational districts, piped water connections have risen from 31 lakh to over 1.16 crore, the Prime Minister noted.
Mr. Modi said it has to be ensured that the situation of bringing water to any part of the country through tankers or trains never arises.
Remarking that for a long time those who were responsible for policy-making lived in abundance of water, Mr. Modi said, “They had water at their homes and in their swimming pools”.
“They had not seen poverty and it was just an attraction for them. It was just a means for them to show off knowledge. They should have strived for an ideal village but they kept liking the shortcomings in the villages,” he added.
The Prime Minister also launched the Jal Jeevan Mission app for improving awareness among stakeholders and for greater transparency and accountability of schemes under the mission.
