Tap water to every rural household in Jammu & Kashmir, target missed?

Jammu and Kashmir has set a target of September 2022 to provide tap water to every rural household. For this, it has also submitted an Annual Action Plan (AAP) , which is placed before a national committee headed by the Secretary of the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Ministry of Water Power, through video conferencing. 

Two districts of Jammu and Kashmir, Srinagar and Ganderbal, have already been declared as 'Har Ghar Jal District' (FHTC). In these districts, 100% of rural households have the facility of tap water connection.

Status of households with tap water connection (as on date) | Jammu & Kashmir

There are a total of 18.16 lakh rural households in the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Out of these, about 10 lakh families have been provided with a tap connection by 31 March 2021. At the same time, the state plans to provide 4.9 lakh tap connections in 2021-22. Also, its plan is to declare 9 more districts as 'Har Ghar Jal District' district, so that every rural household can be provided with tap water connection. 

Which will be completed under the Water Life Mission. Jal Jeevan Mission is an ambitious scheme of the Central Government under which all rural families of the country have to be provided drinking water through pipes by 2024. 10,000 crores was given for this in the budget of 2019-20. At the same time, a budget of Rs 50,000 crore has been allocated for this in 2021-22.

55 percent households in J&K have access to tap water

If we look at the latest figures released by the Ministry of Water Power , about 38.13 per cent of the households (7.31 crore) in rural India have been provided with water connection. Whereas in Jammu and Kashmir, about 55 per cent of the households have access to tap water. Whose number is about 1 million.

Water quality during summer is a concern in Jammu and Kashmir. Keeping this in mind, the Ministry has suggested to give appropriate incentives for water quality testing. The state plans to give NABL recognition to 20 laboratories during 2021-22. Also, field testing kits and vials of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) will be provided at the community level for quality testing.

Along with this, the National Committee has also advised Jammu and Kashmir to intensify its efforts towards ensuring proper water quality and monitoring services. At the same time, it has also stressed the need to improve the capacity of laboratories.

It has been decided to introduce sensor-based measurement and monitoring system in those two districts of Jammu and Kashmir where only 100 percent of the households have access to tap water. Water supply will be monitored in the villages of these districts with the help of sensors. Also, data will be acquired in an automated manner for analysis, demonstration and remedial action.

If this plan is successful, then the day is not far when every rural household in Jammu and Kashmir will get clean drinking water, so that diseases related to it will be controlled there, but the path is not so easy on the strength of the plans alone. Social will and solidarity are also necessary for these goals to be achieved.

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