Jal Jeevan Mission advances with more than 35,500 geo-tagged water treatment plants

NEW DELHI: As many as 35,578 water treatment plants have been geo-tagged under the ‘Jal Jeevan Mission – Har Ghar Jal’ across the country, the government has said.

The initiative, launched in August 2019, has been making significant progress towards achieving the goal of providing piped drinking water in rural India.

The scheme was rolled out by the Centre along with state and union territory governments with an aim to provide sufficient and safe drinking water.

For the scheme, finances and expertise are provided by the Centre while state and UT governments are responsible for planning, approval, implementation and maintenance.

As per government reports placed in Lok Sabha, Assam tops the list with 17,762 geo-tagged water treatment centres under the scheme, followed by Arunachal Pradesh with 3,311, Karnataka (1,871), Haryana (1,059), and Jammu & Kashmir (1,315). Other states like Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Punjab, and Odisha have also shown improvement in establishing treatment facilities. However, certain states and UTs, such as Bihar, Telangana, the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, and Puducherry, have not yet reported a single geo-tagged water treatment plant under the mission.

The focus of the mission continues to be on upgrading infrastructure, water quality assurance, and incorporating new technology to abate contamination problems.