On 15th August, 2019 with the aim to provide safe and adequate drinking water to every household, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched Jal jeevan Mission that envisions water for everyone through individual household taps connections by the year 2024. Apart from providing water, the mission will also concentrate at promoting sustainability measures such as water conservation, rain water harvesting, recharge and reuse through grey water management etc.

The government of India, restructured the existing National Rural Drinking Water Programme and subsumed it into Jal Jeevan Mission to provide safe, quality and adequate drinking water and household tap connection to every rural household, i.e. Har Ghar Nal Se Jal by the year 2024.

Mission

Jal Jeevan Mission aims to:

Facilitate States/ UTs in formulating rural water supply strategy for ensuring potable drinking water security for everyone.
Assist States/UTs in providing every rural household and institutions such as, schools, anganwadi centres, health centres, etc.
Assist States/ UTs for creation of water supply infrastructure to enable water supply via tap connection and to provide adequate quantity of water to everyone.
Assist States/ UTs to plan for their drinking water security
Empower Gram Panchayats/ rural communities to manage, own, operate and maintain their in-village water supply systems
Enable States/ UTs to develop robust institutions for service delivery and financial sustainability
Facilitate capacity building of the stakeholders and drive awareness in community on water conservation

Ben & Gaws legal explains that since there is a demand for household piped water supply in rural areas, Jal Jeevan Mission will ensure it through assured household taps. This will not only improve the quality of life significantly, especially for women and children, it will also help in ODF-sustainability and will play an integral part in sustaining Swachh Bharat Mission’s gains. Proper implementation of the Jal Jeevan Mission, especially in rural areas, will require, water supply infrastructure, distribution network, water resource management, skilled and unskilled human resource. All of this will generate livelihood opportunities and employment and will in turn boost the rural economy.

The on-ground experience and extensive network of NGOs, SHGs etc can be utilised to assist the village community for in-village water resource management. These not for profit organisations can act as partners to facilitate awareness in communities, capacity building and implementation of the schemes. They can play an efficient role in mobilising the community members and train them for resource mapping and adopting sustainable practices for water conservation and also train them for maintenance of the water recharge systems.

Jal Jeevan Mission focuses on supply management of the water demand at the local level. This includes creation of local infrastructure for water storage such as water tanks, overhead water tanks etc. Supply management also includes practices such as rainwater harvesting, ground water recharge etc. Ben and Gaws legal will help build water tanks for the mission. These tanks will be installed outside the villages and connected with the community and ease their daily water related operations such as for domestic use, irrigation purposes etc.

National Jal Jeevan Mission has partnered with United Nations Office for Project Services for support and technical assistance in the implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission. The United Nations Office for Project Services is lending support in capacity building, community engagement and mobilisation, and creating model villages by assisting in the preparation of Village Action Plans. Jal Jeevan Mission has associated with other sector partners as well who are reaching forward and providing necessary support for implementing the schemes under the purview of the mission in water stressed regions of the country.

Organisations like Ben & Gaws legal have a huge role to play since they through their resources and expertise are providing the infrastructural support required for the successful implementation of the programme. Jal Jeevan Mission announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has a total budget of Rs. 50,011 crore for the year 2021-22. Jal Jeevan Mission envisages to supply 55 litres of water per person per day to every rural household through Functional Household Tap Connections.

During the launch of the mission, only 17% of India’s rural households had piped water supply. Today, around 41.14% rural households have functional household tap connections with regular water supply.