 "Gajendra Singh Shekhawat")
Union Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat on Thursday will chair a one-day conference to discuss the planning, implementation and progress of the Jal Jeevan Mission in the eight north-eastern states.
This will be attended by ministers-in-charge of public health engineering departments (PHED) of all these states and senior officials, the Jal Shakti Ministry said in a statement.
The Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) is a flagship programme of the Centre and it is being implemented by the ministry's department of drinking water and sanitation, in partnership with states, to provide tap water connection to every rural household across country by 2024.
The conference, which is to be held at the Assam Administrative Staff College in Guwahati, will be streamed live so that all stakeholders, including chief, executive, assistant and junior PHED engineers in these states can benefit from the deliberations, the ministry said.
"The conference is being organised to discuss planning, implementation and progress made so far as well as the way forward so that all remaining households in northeastern states get tap water connections at the earliest," it said.
The JJM fund sharing pattern between the Centre and a northeastern state is 90:10. The central government has allocated Rs 9,262 crore to northeastern states under the mission.
"The enhanced allocation as well as release of funds at this challenging time to provide tap water connections to rural homes in the northeast states, is expected to boost the economy of the region," the ministry said.
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The focus of the conference will be on issues pertaining to implementation of the programme vis--vis strategy and planning, progress made so far and ways to increase the pace of implementation, it said.
The ministry said that at the time of the announcement of the mission in August 2019, out of the total 90.14 lakh rural households in northeastern states, only 2.83 lakh (3.13 per cent) had tap water connection. This has now increased to about 22 lakh households (24.45 per cent), it said.
About 20 lakh households have been given tap water connections in the last 24 months despite the COVID-19 pandemic and disruptions and lockdowns induced by it, the ministry said.
Meghalaya, Manipur and Sikkim aim to achieve the status of 'Har Ghar Jal' by 2022 while Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura aim to provide tap water in every household by 2023 followed by Assam in 2024, it said.
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