Goa: First to become Har Ghar Jal State; to provide 100% Tap Water Connections

On October 9, 2020, the Ministry of Jal Shakti announced that Goa has become the first state in India to provide 100% tap water connections in rural areas. Around 2.3 lakh households were covered in the state.

Highlights

On its successful implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission, Goa has become the first “Har Ghar Jal State” to provide 100% household tap connection in rural areas. In order to strengthen water testing facilities in the state, Goa is in the process of getting 14 water quality testing laboratories. The laboratories are to be accredited by National Accreditation Board. The Jal Jeevan Mission has made it compulsory to train five persons in every village to use field test kits. The priority to persons being trained were given to women.

The State of Goa is now planning to install sensor-based service delivery monitoring system to monitor the functionality of water supply.

Role of MGNREGA

The Government of India in April 2020, allowed to MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) workers to take up Jal Jeevan Mission works. This was done to speed up Jal Jeevan Mission and also to provide employment to the migrant workers who had returned to their respective native villages due to lock down. This helped to provide livelihood to the workers and also helped in rural development. However, while employing MGNREGA workers, the priority was given to irrigation and water conservation works.

Challenges in the mission

The mission faces difficulty in achieving targets in the states of Assam, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. This is because these states have less than 5% of tap water connection.

Jal Jeevan Mission

The mission aims to provide 55 litres of tapped water per person per day to all the households by 2024. In order to implement the mission successfully, a Village Action Plan was prepared with three main components such as water source and its maintenance, greywater management and water supply.

Month: Current Affairs - October, 2020