GOVT’S JAL JEEVAN MISSION TO LINK TAP WATER CONNECTION TO AADHAAR
NEW DELHI: Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM), the government’s flagship scheme to make piped water available to all, will be linking every tap water connection to the Aadhaar number of the head of the household.
“By leveraging the use of technology, JJM is promoting transparency, accountability, effective fund utilisation, etc. for assured service delivery. Every tap water connection provided is being linked with the Aadhaar number of the head of the household and the water supply infrastructure created is being geo-tagged,” said Bharat Lal Additional Secretary & Mission Director at National Jal Jeevan Mission in Jal Jeevan Samwad, a monthly newsletter of the Mission. Lal said that JJM has leveraged technology in other ways too. Sensor-based IoT devices have been installed for automatic data capture to measure and monitor the water supply. The online JJM Dashboard, which is in the public domain, provides state/ union territory/ district and village-wise progress of provision of tap water supply in rural areas, viz. households as well as public institutions.
According to JJM data, the coverage of tap water connection in 117 aspirational districts has increased from 3.13 million (9%) to 11.654 million (34%) households in 24 months. Similarly, in 61 districts affected with Japanese Encephalitis / Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (JE/ AES) across five states, tap water connections increased from 800,000 (2.5%) to 11.1 million (36%) households in 24 months, resulting in improvement in the quality of life of people, especially women and children.
Lal said that in every village, five persons, especially women, are being trained on the use of Field Test Kits (FTKs) to test the quality of water supplied, conduct sanitary surveys, and upload the data on JJM portal.
He also said JJM has roped in 185 organisations, including United Nations agencies like UNICEF, UNOPS, for sector partnership. “They are dovetailing their resources and efforts with JJM to help in achieving the ‘Har Ghar Jal’ goal,” he added.
NEW DELHI: The share of samples in Delhi’s labs with the fast-spreading Delta variant of the Sars-Cov-2 grew from 0 to 91% between February and July, according to documents detailing the genome surveillance during the fourth wave of the pandemic which, the assessment shows, was sparked off by the Alpha variant before the Delta took hold and spread like wildfire.
The documents give a previously unseen estimate of how the variants of concern (VOCs) took hold in Delhi: In March, 47.4% of the samples accounted for the Alpha variant (also known as B.1.1.7, first found in UK) with Delta being only 0.9%. The following month, Alpha samples reduced to 12.1% while Delta rose to 54%. The trend continued and by July, Delta accounted for 91% while Alpha reduced to 2.3%. The rest were other lineages. (see box)
The findings are based on the whole genome sequencing of 6,673 samples processed collectively by the laboratories in the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Institute of
Liver and Billiary Sciences (ILBS) and Lok Nayak Hospital.
The information was shared by the health department to the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) in a meeting on August 27, the minutes of which were notified on
Wednesday.
Both Alpha and Delta variants have been classified as “variants of concern” by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The Delta variant was identified in India in December 2020 and has subsequently been detected in over 95 countries.
A flurry of scientific evidence since India’s devastating April-May peak has established the Delta variant, also known as B.1.617.2, to be harder to contain since it is significantly more transmissible and can also resist immunity triggered by a past infection or elicited by vaccines.
“The huge increase in the number of cases was not anticipated because the older variant was not as infectious and would now have caused it. Now, a huge proportion of the people have been exposed to the infection and many others have been vaccinated, leaving only a small pool of susceptible persons. Now, we need to be on the lookout for a variant that might evade immunity. Without that, the virus will not
TREND CONTINUED AND BY JULY, DELTA ACCOUNTED FOR 91% WHILE ALPHA REDUCED TO 2.3%. THE REST WERE OTHER LINEAGES
spread because of limited susceptible population,” said Dr Jugal Kishore, head of the department of community medicine at Safadrjung hospital.
Earlier this week, a research paper published in the journal Nature found that there was a six-fold drop in the ability of antibodies from a past infection to neutralise the Delta variant, and a greater eight-fold reduction in the potency of antibodies elicited by vaccines.
In comparison, the Alpha variant (first found in the UK) triggered only a 2.3-fold drop in potency of antibodies drawn from recovered Covid-19 patients.
Another part of the analysis also showed the most evasive variant was Beta (first found in South Africa), followed by Delta and Alpha.
The study, which included researchers from India, UK and Japan, also pointed to the variant’s molecular biology that made it more transmissible: it achieves this by having mutated to make its fusion with the host cell more efficient. Once within a cell, it also replicates more widely as compared to the Alpha variant.