Month Long Jal Jeevan Mission Community Participation Campaign To Ensure Water Quality & Increase The Pace Of Implementation
The Union Territory of Ladakh launched a month-long campaign- ‘Pani Maah’ (Water Month) to increase the pace of implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission in the UT and to inform and engage village communities on the importance of clean water. ‘Pani Maah’ will run at the Block and Panchayat level in two phases. The first phase will run from 1st to 14th August and the second phase will run from 16th to 30th August 2021. The campaign will adopt a three-pronged approach- focussing on water quality testing, planning and strategizing water supply, and seamless functioning of Pani Sabha in villages.
Launching the campaign on 25th July 2021, during a four-day workshop on the implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission in Ladakh, Lt. Governor Shri R K Mathur, emphasized upon the objective of the ‘Pani Maah. He said that an efficient service delivery brings transparency and ensures good governance. Through this month-long campaign, village communities will be encouraged to send water samples to water quality laboratories for quality checks and monitoring.
In the first phase of ‘Pani Maah’, the focus will be on Swachhta Sarvekshan and Sanitation drives by Village Water and Sanitation Committee (VWSC)/ Pani Samiti members. During this phase, water samples will be collected from all identified sources and service delivery points for testing. The first phase will also include awareness and sensitization campaigns.
Phase two of ‘Pani Maah’ will focus on organizing the Pani Sabhas/ Gram Sabhas/ Block level meetings and door-to-door visits for effective communication on water quality and service delivery under JJM. During this phase, Jal Jeevan Mission implementation, water quality test reports, and analysis will be discussed with the villagers in an open forum. A village/ block-wise schedule has also been prepared for water sample collection and the Gram Sabhas to ensure maximum participation of villagers in the campaign.
The Union Territory of Ladakh has also announced an award of Rs. 5 lakh per village for the first 5 ‘Har Ghar Jal’ villages of each district in UT and Rs. 25 lakh to the first ‘Har Ghar Jal’ block in each district. Outstanding PRI members, BDOs, AEEs, and other concerned stakeholders will be honored on Republic Day 2022 for their contribution towards making villages, blocks and districts, ‘Har Ghar Jal’.
On 15 August 2019, at the time of the launch of Jal Jeevan Mission, out of 18.98 Crore rural households in the country, only 3.23 Crore (17%) had tap water connections. Despite Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown disruptions, Jal Jeevan Mission provided 4.65 Crore tap water connections in the last 23 months. As a result, today, 7.89 Crore (41.27%) households have a tap water supply. Goa, Telangana, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu, and Puducherry have achieved 100% household connection in rural areas and has become ‘Har Ghar Jal’.
Following the principle of the Prime Minister’s vision of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas’, the motto of the Mission is that ‘no one is left out and every household in a village should be provided with a tap water connection. At present, 78 districts, 906 blocks, over 53 thousand Gram Panchayats, and more than 1.06 lakh villages have achieved the target of ‘Har Ghar Jal’.
