Jal Jeevan Mission

History

• In 1972, Central government assistance to states for rural water supply under the “Accelerated Rural Drinking Water Supply Scheme” launched.
• In 2009, the project was renamed as "National Rural Drinking Water Program", making it a joint project between the central and state governments. One of the NRDWP's objectives is to "ensure that all households have access to safe and adequate drinking water as much as possible, a goal proposed to be achieved by 2030 in collaboration with the United Nations".
• As of now, the target is planned to be achieved by 2024 through the Jal Jeevan Mission. As per the information in DDWS, as on 31.3.2019, only 18.33% of rural households i.e. 3.27 crore out of total 17.87 crore rural households in the country have piped water connection.
• Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the scheme in 2019 Union budget. In August 2019 National Rural Drinking Water Programme was restructured by Modi government as Jal Jeevan Mission.
• Since its inception, the scheme has significantly improved household clean tap water availability in India. The government has also published website based dashboard to track the progress details of the mission.
• In August 2022, Goa and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu became the first 'Har Ghar Jal' certified State and UT respectively with 100% tap-water access.

  Impact

• Rural India is now saving 5.5 crore hours a day in water fetching through this project, increasing labor participation and productivity, especially from women.
• The World Health Organization says nearly 400,000 deaths from diarrheal diseases are prevented because of a safely managed drinking water program for all households in the country.
• About 1.36 lakh child deaths can be prevented by providing safe drinking water to all rural households.

  Statistics