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Guwahati: The availability of safe drinking water is not a far cry in India ever since the launch of the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM). Launching in 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised safe drinking water across the rural households of the country.
The Jal Jeevan Mission aims to promote the cause of not only simply providing safe water but also increasing the economic standards of the state significantly.
Business Northeast spoke to Additional Secretary to the Government of Assam (Public Health Engineering Department) and Mission Director (MD) of Jal Jeevan Mission and Swachh Bharat Mission-Gramin Kailash Karthik N, about the flagship programme, its status and reach in Assam and its new plan for the new financial years. Excerpts:
BNE: Please tell us about Jal Jeevan Mission in Assam.
MD: The Jal Jeevan Mission is the flagship programme of the Government of India. The Prime Minister has taken an initiative. Under this mission, every single rural household across India will get a functional household tap.
The scheme has three major promises. It is promised that every person will get 55 litres of water per person in household per day. The water will be safe and of higher standards which is fit for human consumption. The infrastructure that is being built will last for 30 years.
The operation and maintenance of this will be very low. The cost of water per person will be extremely sustainable and minimal. That is the major premise of this scheme.
Across India, this scheme is being launched on August 15, 2019. When it was launched in Assam, they had access to only 1.6% of the total households, that is, only 1.1 lakh households.
The total number of households in Assam is about 67 lakhs. However, in the last three years, we have managed to cover only 47%. At present, about 32 lakh households which have access to functional household tap connections.
The vision is that by 2024, we will be able to cover the rest 50% as well.
Unless the households that are extremely remote where the number of households in a particular geographical area is less than 20 than it is too expensive to provide a functional tap connection through such methods.
Also, in char areas or those areas where there is a risk of getting the land eroded. There are people who have a migrating tendency. Creating a permanent infrastructure for them is difficult. Except in those areas, the Jal Jeevan Missions targets to cover in 2024.
BNE: Why Jal Jeevan Mission is operating in rural India only, as there are many urban poor households?
MD: This is under the PHE and Drinking Water and Sanitation Department of the Government of India. That department serves rural areas.
For urban areas, in Government of Assam as well there is an urban development department and under the Government of India there is a Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. They have come up with another programme called Mission AMRUT. Under this mission, they are planning to cover towns, cities, etc. Jal Jeevan Mission is only focused in rural areas. The demand for water in urban areas is different. The total quantum of water people consume in urban areas is higher. They need to clean their house, wash their vehicles, for commercial purposes, etc. The structure is completely different. In rural areas, people use it for cooking, drinking, bathing,
BNE: What is the total number of beneficiaries?
MD: Around 3 crores of beneficiaries are included in this project in Assam. The mission plans to spend around Rs 35,000 crore from the beginning till 2024.
BNE: What new plans are there for the new financial year?
MD: Last year, the total money spent was Rs 4,500 crore. This year, they have a more ambitious target to cover the remaining 50%. They are expecting to spend Rs 15,000 crore in this financial year.
BNE: What challenges are faced by Jal Jeevan Mission?
MD: In Guwahati, people feel the need for water. People were content with tube-well water or from a river nearby. But, those tube-wells were actually drying up and the water coming from it are full of bacteria that cause diarrhoea, dysentery, etc. Thus, there is a lack of ownership from the community.
Secondly, many people feel that they don’t need water. But that scenario is changing with climate changes causing dry spells in the region.
As they are working for many schemes the capacity of the department and the capacity of the contractors to complete a task as per the norms and within a time frame is becoming a big challenge.
BNE: What methods are being adopted to create awareness for the project?
MD: We often make efforts to create awareness. We have onboarded self-help groups and the members are called implementation support agencies. They are assigned to different villages. They go and organise sabhas, gram sabhas, meetings, another interpersonal communication mechanism, etc and sensitize people about the need for water.
The message that the traditional way of consumption of water is harmful is also conveyed.
The second approach is to start a mission called Jaldoot. It is in partnership with the Science and Technology Department and Education Department. Against each scheme, the mission is identifying around 5-10 children, who are from Class 8-12. These children will be taken through a two-day workshop called ‘Jalshala’, Here, they will be trained on water quality, water purification, filtration, conservation concepts. Once trained they will go back to their houses and sensitise the adults, classmates, etc.
We are also using traditional and social media to promote things like puppetry in haats and other areas, street plays by school children in local bazaars and local areas. A theme song has been created to be played on prime-time television. Famous television soaps are also being used to inform people on safe drinking water, etc.
BNE: What kind of collaborations are made by Jal Jeevan Mission Assam?
MD: Within the government, they are trying to collaborate with different departments like health, education, science and technology etc. They are in collaboration with district administrators central to driving Jal Jeevan Mission. Outside the government, they have signed MoU with not-for-profit, organizations which are active in the water space like Water Aid India, Reap Benefit, UNICEF, UNOPS and the like. We partner with them so that we can achieve this large mission. Capacity is the biggest challenge. So how do you do it in such a short time and do it correctly because the value of money is so high? We have to get it right in the first place itself. We also have to create a sense of sustainability. We partner with a number of organisations for their specific skill sets.
BNE: What is the strength of Jal Jeevan Mission?
MD: Within the department itself I would say that with engineers and field-level contractors, we are a team of about a thousand people. But when we add the self-help groups, school students, district administration, the NGOs, we are a few lakhs.
BNE: Anything you would like to say about its future?
MD: This is the world’s largest rural drinking water supply programme ever. In terms of capital infrastructure like expenditure from the government, revenue expenditure like the salary and many other activities. In terms of capital infrastructure projects that the government of Assam has ever undertaken. Water has such a foundation if we are able to provide water the research says that we are able to provide safe access to rural communities and almost 25% of infant mortality rate can be avoided. You don’t need to build a new hospital, train new doctors and nurses. You can just provide safe water. But it is almost ten-year activity to build a new hospital, train a new doctor or train nurses. Within a year, you can actually change the lives of people there. That way Jal Jeevan Mission has an extremely important role. Obviously, there is a direct benefit that people get water at their homes. They don’t have to go far or they don’t have to put mechanical effort into pulling it from the well. The second indirect benefit is that they will fall less ill. Young children will die less.
Assam has one of the highest rates of malnutrition. One of the important reasons why malnutrition happens is that even if I have access to good quality nutritious food but I don’t get access to safe drinking water. Then I am going to develop diarrhoea and dysentery and most of my nutrition is going to go away.
Just by providing good nutrition and safe drinking water children are going to be nourished. Those children who are nourished will be better able to concentrate in schools. It is because their cognitive abilities will develop. Subsequently, they will become much economically richer.
This is the biggest investment in capital infrastructure that will make Assam from a fairly low-income poor state to at least a middle-income state. That is the biggest benefit of Jal Jeevan Mission.
BNE: Have you reached the mountainous areas and tea estates?
MD: Almost 65% of tea estates have access to water from Jal Jeevan Mission. Within September, we will cover 100% tea estates. As far as mountainous region is concerned, recently, the Chief Minister inaugurated a scheme in Udalguri in the Bhutan foothills. This is one of the schemes where we have tapped water from the Bhutan border. The entire water flows through gravity. There is zero electricity. That water is for 24/ 7. Even in urban areas, we are not being able to provide 24/7 urban drinking water supply. But in that scheme, about 2700 households get water without paying for electricity. In the entire 24/7 time, at any time they open the tap, they will get water. Even in very difficult areas like the Bhutan border or in Dima Hasao, Karbi Anglong or in South Salmara we have managed to provide water. Although they are in different stages and districts like Majuli and Guwahati (the outskirts) more than 80% of households have access to water today. But in some places like Karbi Anglong, Dima Hasao the access is around 20-25%. Over the next year, we will cover everywhere.
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