Vikas Sharma
Water is one of the Fundamental ingredients for life on this planet. Humans, animals, plants and other organism have complete dependency over it and we cannot expect survival without this basic ingredient. If we compare our body with the Earth, both have near same proportion of water i.e. 70%.But out of that 70 % (70.9% is actually on earth) only 3% is the fresh water which is available for consumption and is in the form of glaciers, ice caps, ground and surface water etc.18% of the global Human population lives in India and per capita freshwater availability has drastically come down since 1951.Increase in population, over extraction of ground water, climate change, poor Ground water recharge, less storage structure and poor operation and maintenance are the key factors responsible for such drastic decrease.
Since Independence, the Government is trying to provide the potable water to its citizens by introducing new schemes time to time. For execution of these schemes Centre Government has been continuously assisting the States by way of providing necessary funding and technical assistance. But, even after spending major chunk of funds into variety of “Water and Sanitation” programmes the Government couldn’t get the desired fruits. As India being a vast and diverse Nation, it has 19.27 crore households (HH), out of which mere 3.23 crore households got the piped water Connection prior to the launch of JJM. Besides other reasons for such a small percentage of coverage, the major reason was non involvement of community or the gap between implementing agency and Gram Panchayats/Gram Sabhas. In the backdrop of this, Jal Jeevan Mission was launched in our country with an essence to have “Har Ghar Nal Se Jal”on 15th of August 2019 by the Prime minister of our country from Red fort and he envisaged that that the Central and State Governments shall work together for achieving 100% Functional Household Tap connection (FHTC) by 2024.Initially, an amount of Rs 3.5 Lakh crore was announced for this Mission and also the Government of India had desired to involve community to plan, implement, manage, operate and maintain them in village schemes by adopting “Bottom up Approach”.
JJM and its Basic Objectives: Basic aim of this Mission is to provide a functional Tap connection to every household/Gram panchayat Building/Anganwadi centre/Health wellness centre and public Institution, with following three basic criteria:
* Adequate Quantity
*Quality
*Regular basis and sustainability
Adequate Quantity: It has been envisaged that the village rural Drinking water supply schemes shall be designed for 55 Litre per capita per day ( LPCD) of Drinking water to every rural household with due provision of water for Livestock for now and throughout the design period. Demographic survey and population forecast are the basic for formulation of Detailed Project Report (DPR) and by using the various Population Forecast methods the DPRs are formulated in such a manner that it serves the village present and future population with adequate quantity of water.
Quality: The second pillar of the Jal Jeevan Mission is to provide the Quality water; it means that the water which is being supplied to an inhabitation/village should be free from Physical, Chemical and Biological impurities/contamination and as per the standards fixed under BIS: 10500, for that the necessary Filtration Plants and special Treatment plants are also included in the DPR’s. Field Testing Kits have been made available to Village Water Sanitation Committee (VWSC)/Paani Samiti by which they can check the Quality of water on regular basis
Regular Basis and Sustainability: The third pillar of JJM is to provide the drinking water on regular basis i.e. every day and throughout the designed period, as the Schemes after completion and handing over are to be managed and operated by VWSC/Paani Samiti. For any small damage or malfunctioning to the “In village” Water supply system the same shall be rectified by VWSC from the funds collected from consumers as “water usage charges”. The Central Government has kept much provision for drinking water and sanitation in 15th Finance Commission. Every Gram Panchayts can also utilize funds from it as grant an aid for water sanitation purpose.
Beside above three basic criteria, there is also a provision for managing grey water, Rain water harvesting and ground water recharge.
Why community participation: The main reason behind implementation of JJM through Community participation is that the 73rd Amendment of Constitution of India has placed the Drinking water in the 11th Schedule and has assigned its management to the Local Government. The Public Health Engineering Department will facilitate the Gram Panchayats to perform their duties. Devolution of powers to the PRIs, equitable distribution, demand driven supply and to install sense of ownership in community toward the in village water supply structure are the main reasons behind community participation in JJM.The process of community participation itself commence by from the day of basic planning of village water supply scheme, in JJM the power of basic planning of any water supply scheme is vested with VWSC/Paani Samiti, this committee may be headed by Sarpanch or any other member of Gram Sabha,the Patwari/Village Secretary shall act as a Secretary to the committee. The Paani Samiti consist of 10-15 members, out of which 25% shall be the elected member of Gram Panchayat, 50% members shall be the women and rest 25% shall be from weaker section of the community (SC/ST).It is important to note that 50% representation has been given to the women, its only because women are the main sufferers from drudgery of having travel to long distance and bring the water to home, lot of energy of rural women and minor girls gets wasted in carrying the water from source to home, this leads into least participation of them in income generation process, loss of school days and adverse health impacts.JJM will bring ease of living for rural communities especially to women.
The main responsibilities of VWSC: to prepare the Village Action Plan(VAP), to provide the FHTC to existing and new Houses, to plan, implement, manage, and operate in village scheme, to motivate community to contribute 5%- 10% of capital expenditure of scheme by way of cash or labour, to supervise the quality of infrastructure development under JJM, to check the quality of water by using Field Testing Kits (FTK),to aware the community for judicious use of water and to encourage the community for rain water harvesting, ground water Recharge and water management. Besides VWSC the Implementation support Agency (ISA) is the prime Agency who will help the Paani samiti in their every activity of mobilizing and engaging the community, it shall act as bridge between District Water Sanitation mission (DWSM) and a VWSC.
JJM in UT of J&K: The Government of J&K has fixed the target to complete the Jal Jeevan Mission in the entire UT by 15th August 2022; this target is two year advance than the target fixed by the Central Government for pan India. As per the data available on JJM IMIS (Integrated Management Information System) portal out of 1835190 Households in J&K only 575466 households had Functional Household water connection before the Launch of this Mission. As of now, 476052 new FHTC have been installed since the Launch of this Mission. The total of 57.30% HH of J&K now have FHTC which were mere 31.36% in August 2019. Institutions of Public Importance like Anganwadi centres and Health wellness centres have been also provided with piped drinking water under this Mission to a greater extent. The Jal Shakti (PHE) Department of J&K is looking after the tendering and execution of all the water supply schemes. Although non availability of material and labour to the contractors in prevailing Covid-19 Pandemic situation has hampered and slowed down the pace of work. But as the target is time bound, the Department is keeping no stone unturned to achieve the target of installing a FHTC to every house of UT of J&K.
(The author is Assistant Engineer, Jal Shakti Department, UT of JK)
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