The Department of Drinking Water And Sanitation, Ministry of Jal Shakti, released its annual report.
Access to clean water is one of the basic requirements for healthy living. In many parts of India, people had to travel long distances to fetch water. As recently as 15th August 2019, when the Jal Jeeval Mission was inaugurated, this was the status of availability of tap water to households.
As we can see, many parts of the country had less than 10% households that received tap water.
As of 6th January 2023, that map looks like this:
Data for Delhi is not available in the map above.
Here are some highlights released by the Ministry.
3 crore connections provided to rural households from January to December 2023.
As of 3rd January 2024, 90% of the villages in India have been declared ODF – Open Defecation Free.
What is ODF?
Just like many parts of the country don’t get tap water at home, everyone does not have toilets at home either. If you have traveled by train in the last ten years or more, you might have observed people relieving themselves by the side of the train tracks, especially in the morning.
This is called open defecation.
Under a special program, the Government of India:
A. Gave people money to construct toilets within their house.
B. Made it the responsibility of the government officials to go from door to door and village to village to educate people about the importance of using toilets in a clean way.
C. Tracked the progress of both the construction and usage of toilets.
D. Added it to the performance metrics of the district administration.
Culturally sensitive communication material was specially created in Indian languages to drive the point home.
A village in which no one has to use a field or other open space to defecate is called ODF – Open Defecation Free village.
90% of all schools and 86% of all Anganwadis now have access to tap water.
To ensure that the water quality is good (free from microbes, suspended material, and impurities), 2113 labs all over the country test the water. In 2023- 24 (the financial year that starts on April 1, 2023, and ends on March 31, 2024), 54 lakh water samples were tested in labs and 88 lakh water samples have been tested using Field Test Kits (FTKs). These FTKs are used by trained women professionals who are also residents of the village.
You can access the Jal Jeevan Mission dashboard here for more information.