National Rural Drinking Water Programme

Context:

Government of India, in partnership with States, is implementing Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM), after subsuming erstwhile National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP), to make provision of tap water supply to every rural household and public institutions in villages like schools, anganwadicentres, ashramshalas (tribal residential schools), health and wellness centres, Gram Panchayat building, etc., by 2024.

About National Rural Drinking Water Programme:

• National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) was launched in 2009.
• It aimed to provide all rural habitations, government schools, and anganwadis access to safe drinking water.
• It aims to provide safe and adequate water for drinking, cooking and other domestic needs to every rural person on a sustainable basis.  
• It has provision of 50: 50 fund sharing between Centre and the States.
• The programme ran co-terminus with the 14^th Finance commission until March 2020
• It also aimed to provide 50% of rural population potable drinking water (55 litres per capita per day) by piped water supply. 
• It also sought to give household connections to 35% of rural households.  

Concerns

Underperformance of the scheme: 

• Only 44% of rural households and 85% of government schools and anganwadis were provided access.  
• Of this, only 18% of the rural population was provided potable drinking water. 
• Of this, only 17% of rural households were given household connections. 

Planning and delivery mechanism: The CAG noted that 21 states had not framed water security plans.  

• The apex level National Drinking Water and Sanitation Council set up to co-ordinate and ensure convergence remained largely non-functional.  
• State level agencies important for planning and execution of the programme, such as the State Water and Sanitation Mission, State Technical Agency, and Block Resources Centres were either not set up or were under-performing. 
• Fund management:  The availability of funds declined during 2013-14 and 2016-17 due to reduced central allocation and inability of states to increase their own financial commitment.    
• Programme implementation: NRDWP failed to achieve its targets due to deficiencies in implementation, such as: (i) incomplete, abandoned and non-operational works, (ii) unproductive expenditure on equipment, (iii) non-functional sustainability structures, and (iv) gaps in contractual management, with a total financial implication of Rs 2,212 crore. 
• There was inadequate focus on surface water based schemes and 98% of the schemes, including piped water schemes continued to be based on ground water resources. 
• The CAG also noted that operation and maintenance plans were either not prepared in most states or they had deficiencies in them.  This led to schemes becoming non-functional.  

Way forward:

• The CAG recommended that the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation should review the feasibility and practicality of the planning and delivery mechanisms to ensure that they serve the intended purposes. 
• It also suggested that the water security plans and annual action plans must be prepared with community participation to ensure that schemes are aligned to community requirements and utilise water resources in an optimum and sustainable manner.
• It recommended that allocation of resources should be dynamic and based on a clear assessment of requirements and achievements under each component of the scheme. 
• The CAG recommended that focus should be placed on effective works and contract management to ensure that works are completed in time as per the contractual terms.  Delays attributable to contractors should be penalised and accountability should be enforced.

What is Jal Jeevan Mission?

• It is envisioned to provide safe and adequate drinking water through individual household tap connections by 2024 to all households in rural India. 
  • It envisages supply of 55 litres of water per person per day to every rural household through Functional Household Tap Connections (FHTC) by 2024.
  • It also includes functional tap connection to Schools, Anganwadi centres, GP buildings, Health centres, wellness centres and community buildings
• The programme will also implement source sustainability measures as mandatory elements, such as recharge and reuse through grey water management, water conservation, rain water harvesting. 
• JJM focuses on integrated demand and supply-side management of water at the local level.
• The Mission is based on a community approach to water. It looks to create a jan andolan for water, thereby making it everyone’s priority.
  • It promotes and ensure voluntary ownership among local community by way of contribution in cash, kind and/ or labour and voluntary labour.
• Parent Ministry: Department of Drinking Water & Sanitation, Ministry of Jal Shakti
• Funding Pattern: The fund sharing pattern between the Centre and states is 90:10 for Himalayan and North-Eastern States, 50:50 for other states, and 100% for Union Territories.

• Four-tier implementation & monitoring of the scheme at National, State, District & village level.
• There is a Water Quality Management Information System as well which is a dedicated one-stop information portal that provides information about the quality of water. Jal Jeevan Mission emphasizes that each local village should be able to test the quality of water not only at the source but also at the delivery points. For that purpose, the National Jal Jeevan Mission with the help of states is giving training to at least five women in one village, implying out of the 6 lakh villages, 30 lakh women will be trained. So far, 6 lakh women have been trained and they are assigned the task of testing the tap water quality which they get at their village level.

Therefore, all three aspects are taken care of under the Jal Jeevan Mission.: 

• The source of water and its sustainability, 
• The operation maintenance and providing tap water supply to each and every household, and
• The treatment of the greywater or used water

Source: PIB

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