In a major push to the ongoing Jal Jeevan Mission, the government has decided to appoint an independent agency for a nationwide survey to monitor the implementation of its flagship scheme of providing potable drinking water to every household in all six lakh villages. have taken.
The survey ‘Jal Jeevan Survekshan 2023’ launched by the Ministry of Jal Shakti will assess the functionality of household tap-water connections in all villages, checking whether they are getting 55 liters per capita per day (LPCD) of water on a regular basis and whether the water quality is of prescribed standard. It will also evaluate whether the water source is sustainable in the long run. The survey will cover public institution buildings such as schools, anganwadis, gram panchayats, public health as well as welfare centers in villages across all 34 states and union territories.
Field reports twice a year
The ground survey will be conducted twice a year – once in the pre-monsoon season from April to June 2023 and second during the post-monsoon season from November 2023 to January 2024 (post-monsoon) in randomly selected villages.
As News18 reported earlier, the annual exercise will monitor service delivery under the scheme including not only the quality of water being delivered but also the frequency of availability, as well as the readiness of repairs. It will also monitor the performance of water quality testing laboratories, availability of grievance redressal systems and percentage of households paying water user charges.
Currently, the data collection is being done by the local water works department officials of each state. However, the government intends to give the job to a specialized agency starting next year. It has sought Expression of Interest (EoI) from agencies that have previously conducted ground surveys on such a large scale. The last date for sending applications is 31 December.
ranking system for villages
Along with this, the Ministry is also considering strengthening its existing grading system for all the villages covered under Har Ghar Jal Yojana. The idea is to encourage a healthy competition among states to complete the work on time. Since October, it has been providing monthly rankings of villages, districts and states on quality of work and achievement of targets. Each district and state is screened on the basis of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) with geo-tagged documents. The latter ranking is made public to inform citizens about their village and state on JJM implementation and people can work to improve their position in the ranking.
The specialized agency will need to engage with the gram panchayats and local bodies to get their feedback to further improve the programme. Also a major agenda is to get recommendations for any course-corrections to improve the efficiency of household tap water connections.
government headed by the prime minister Narendra Modi Committed to provide potable tap water of at least 55 liters per capita per day (LPCD) to every rural household by 2024. Of the total 19.3 crore households, 10.5 crore (54.8 per cent) have already been provided with tap water and water connections.
To date, Goa has emerged as the only state with 100 per cent tap water connections to all its rural households along with three Union Territories – Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Puducherry, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. Three other states – Telangana, Gujarat and Haryana – have also announced their targets have been met, but are yet to be certified. Punjab (99.9 per cent), Himachal Pradesh (96 per cent), Bihar (95 per cent) and Manipur (74 per cent) follow in the second place.
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