By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, NOV 02, 2020: NATIONAL Jal Jeevan Mission, Department of Drinking Water & Sanitation, Ministry of Jal Shakti is organizing a virtual conference with ministers in-charge of rural water supply of all States/UTs tomorrow through video conference to be chaired by Union Minister of Jal Shakti, Mr Gajendra Singh Shekhawat. Ministers in charge of rural water supply have been requested to participate in the interactive meeting along with the senior officials of the States/ UTs. The planning and implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission in States/ UTs will be discussed with special emphasis on 100-day campaign launched to provide piped water supply in anganwadi centres, ashramshalas and schools in rural areas.

The National Mission is regularly reviewing the progress of implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission in States/ UTs to realize the goals of the mission in a time-bound manner. In this endeavor, the virtual conference has been organized to discuss various issues with ministers in charge of rural water supply of States/UTs to implement Jal Jeevan Mission with speed, scale and skill. The goal of Jal Jeevan Mission is to ensure that every household have assured drinking water supply in adequate quantity of prescribed quality on long-term basis at affordable service delivery charges leading to improvement in living standard of rural community, particularly women & children. The prime objective of the mission is to ensure water supply to every home, functionality of taps on long-term basis, decentralized operation & management & water testing facilities for general public.

The mission gives highest priority to water quality. For this, the States/ UTs are urged to speed up the accreditation of the water testing laboratories. Currently, there are 2,233 government-owned water quality testing labs in States/ UTs. In most States/ UTs, these labs only test water samples are not open to general public. In some States/ UTs, these labs are open to public but charges for testing are so high that it is not possible for any common family to take water sample and get it tested. The mission encourages these labs are opened to public for testing of their water samples on nominal charge as well as GP/ VWSC/ Paani Samiti are trained to test water using kits, and data is uploaded concurrently, it will help in ensuring potability of water. Thus, by integrating these laboratories and making them open to general public will help in ascertaining potability of water supplied through taps. It will help in improving the public health in general and women and children in particular.

Further, a '100-day' campaign has been launched on 2 nd October, 2020 to make provision for assured piped water supply in schools, anganwadi centres and ashramshalas (residential schools in tribal areas), which will help in ensuring clean water to our children for their better health and holistic development. In this connection, Union Minister Mr Shekhawat had appealed to all the Chief Ministers of States in-charge of rural water supply, urging them for their active involvement and support to make the best use of the campaign to ensure safe water in these public institutions.

The objective of the VC is to discuss all these issues at length to give the desired pace and sustain the momentum for implementation of the life changing mission to ensure every rural home gets safe water in their homes regularly and on long-term basis.