Context:

Recently, WHO South East Asia presented the report titled ‘Health impact of Jal Jeevan Mission’.

• A report on the possibility of India falling short of its 2024 target of Har Ghar Jal.

About Jal Jeevan Mission (Har Ghar Jal):

• One of the largest Welfare Programs: According to a statement by the Ministry of Jal Shakti, the overall financial commitment for the Jal Jeevan Mission is ₹ 3,600 billion (US$ 43.80 billion), which makes it one of the largest welfare programmes in the world.
• Important Component of Sustainable Development Goals: It is a part of India’s progress towards the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
  • SDGs are a set of global goals announced in 2015 that countries across the world have to work towards to improve peoples’ quality of life and protect the planet.
  • According to the Jal Shakti ministry, the Har Ghar Jal program’s components align with the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene (JMP) to monitor progress on SDG 6.1 for safely managed drinking water services.

Significance:

• Time Saving & Women Empowering: The report emphasizes the tremendous time and effort saved for women and girls through the provision of tap water. 
  • In 2018, women in India spent an average of 45.5 minutes daily collecting water to meet household needs. Now, females can use this extra time on constructive tasks like study and job.
  • Overall, households without on-premises water spent a staggering 66.6 million hours each day collecting water, with the majority (55.8 million hours) occurring in rural areas. 
• Averting Deaths: The report estimates that ensuring safely managed drinking water for all households in the country could avert nearly 400,000 deaths caused by diarrheal diseases and prevent approximately 14 million Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) related to these diseases.

Concerning Facts:

• Lacking Target: Before implementation of this scheme only about 3.2 crore, or about 16% of rural households, were connected with piped, potable water. 
  • Today, those figures stand at 64%, a substantial increase but still below the target. 
  • It is unlikely that even 75% of households will be connected by this time.
• Unfortunate Incidents: The COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war reportedly caused the mission to slow down considerably. 
• Data Discrepancy: In recent years, the Jal Shakti Ministry has labeled the plan of providing piped water connections as the ‘Har Ghar Jal’ missions, and has consistently underlined the scale of the exercise. Since 2019, about nine crore households have their own exclusive access to piped water. 
  • The figures reported by the Jal Shakti Ministry are solely based on data reported by States. 
  • Very few villages have been certified as ‘Har Ghar Jal’, or having all houses fully connected. 
  • Only 1,68,157 villages have been reported by States as ‘Har Ghar Jal’ and only 59,000 or about 35% have been ‘certified’ — meaning their gram panchayats have formally acknowledged compliance. 
  • The overwhelming fraction of villages have somewhere between half or three-fourths of their households connected. 

Way Forward:

• Need of Reliable Data: The above mentioned data, by no means, is an insignificant achievement, but the challenge is the reliability of these numbers, which need to be rectified.
• Need to Expand its Reach: Few states like Gujarat, Haryana and Punjab achieved 100% compliance. The Centre must put in place a mechanism that discloses the scheme’s performance on the ground in a transparent way and far reaching with each and every corner of India.
• Skilled Manpower: There is a need to skill manpower to make acceptable quality tanks, cisterns and water connections.

News Source: The Hindu