Govt looks to scale up coverage of piped drinking water to village households

NEW DELHI: To scale up coverage of piped drinking water to village households, the government will focus on houses which are close to already operational public stand posts. The Centre has set a target of increasing coverage to 30% of houses in the first year of the Jal Jeevan Mission (2019-24) as compared to the current coverage of less than 20%.
The government is targeting providing piped water supply to every rural household by 2024 under its ambitious plan, which envisages investment of about Rs 3.35 lakh crore.
Sources said while taking piped water supply to houses in areas which have public stand posts is an easier task, work will go on alongside to increase coverage in regions where people dont have any access to piped water supply.
“It will be a mixed approach. At the end of the day, the target is to cover every rural household. But initial success will encourage everyone in the system to put in their best effort,” an official said. TOI has learnt that the Jal Shakti ministry might have a dedicated dashboard on the lines of the Swachh Bharat Mission to measure daily progress in real time.
Drinking water and sanitation secretary Parameswaran Iyer had told TOI that they will give huge flexibility to village panchayats, which will decide the charges that people will have to pay to get clean piped water right in their house.
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