India provides 80 million rural households with tap water

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
17 Feb 2023 14:43

As the country suffers from a grave water crisis, India’s Jal Jeevan Mission of tap water access plants hope for the country.

A boy drinking from a water tap in India. (AFP)

With 1.3 billion people and an expected increase to 1.7 billion by 2050, India is unable to provide safe, clean water to the vast majority of its population.

A severe lack of regulation, excessive privatization, general negligence, and extensive government corruption have resulted in many generations thirsting for more than a few drops of hazard-free water.

However, the Jal Jeevan Mission --which started in August 2019-- brought hope to the country. Since then, about 79 million homes have gained access to a tap water connection, increasing the total to 111 million, or 56% of rural households in the country.

By 2024, the mission aspires to have connected every family in the country to public water infrastructure. Despite disruptions during the epidemic, the program has achieved tremendous success from a starting base of only 32.2 million rural homes out of a recorded 192 million.

After Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi proclaimed the mega milestone, the union minister of the merged ministries of sanitation and drinking water celebrated the accomplishment.

Prior to the implementation of Jal Jeevan, just 49.5% of the country had access to safe drinking water, a figure lower than that of neighboring Bangladesh.