Centre pushes for 100% household tap connections in rural areas of West Bengal

NEW DELHI: In continuation of various initiatives taken up to improve the lives of people of this country, ‘Jal Jeevan Mission' was launched by Government of India last year to provide every rural household in the country a Functional Household Tap Connection for supply of potable water in adequate quantity and of prescribed quality on regular and

long-term basis.

Following the true spirit of cooperative federalism, State Governments are implementing this flagship programme to realize the objectives of the Mission so as to ensure ‘ease of

living' of people in rural areas as well as reduce the ‘drudgery' of women, especially girls. This life changing Mission focuses on the key principles of ‘equity and inclusiveness', i.e. every family in the village gets tap water connection in their households. With a departure from earlier programmes, JJM stresses on service delivery, rather than infrastructure creation.

The Annual Action Plan (AAP) is very important for timely implementation to achieve the goals of the mission, for which very intensive exercise was carried out in the Ministry in last couple of months and all the States have presented their annual action plan for JJM. West Bengal is yet to present its AAP before the National Committee of the Ministry of Jal Shakti.

West Bengal has 1.63 Crore rural households spread over 41,357 villages, but only 2 lakh households have a tap connection in their premises.