Vini Mahajan is a union secretary in the Drinking Water and Sanitation Department.
New Delhi:
Under the central government’s ambitious Jal Jeevan mission, which promises to provide piped water to every rural household, nearly eight states and union territories have already achieved “Har Ghar Jal” status. There is not a single state today with coverage below 30 percent, Vini Mahajan, secretary of the Drinking Water and Sanitation Department of the Jal Shakti Ministry, said in an interview. She added that the focus is now on 13 states that account for most of the balance of work, and one of the program’s biggest achievements has been access to piped water to 84% of rural government schools from India.
Here are edited excerpts from the interview:
When the Jal Shakti Ministry was established in 2019, there were speculations about its operation as water is a state subject. The target itself was considered ambitious as household coverage with piped water was less than 20%. What is the progress of the program so far?
Under the Constitution of India, water is a state subject. Different states have approached it in different ways and have had different priorities. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his 2019 Independence Day speech that the country would make rapid and massive progress and provide drinking water to every rural household, the states of the country were in very different places. There were states with coverage below 1% and there were states that had risen to 99%. The agroclimatic conditions are different in states, some are under water stress and others have adequate water but are contaminated with the presence of arsenic and fluoride in large parts of the country. So the challenge was to get to every house in every village. There are 26 lakh villages in the country and the number of rural households is estimated at 19.4 crore. When we started on August 15, 2019, there were 3.23 crore rural households in the country who reported having access to piped water. The task was gigantic, but the great thing is that the program saw a combination of factors come together to produce amazing results in a short period of time. These factors started with political will, from the highest levels down to the villages. Village communities were created to synchronize with this vision. Huge amounts of money were made available as per the requirements. We are talking about an order of Rs 3.6 lakh crore which was expected in 2019. States also participated with their share. There was a need to work with communities and foster good partnerships. We are proud that a coverage of less than 17% in 2019 is now a coverage of 60%. In this short span of time, more than 8.5 crore rural households have received tap connections. These numbers are like giving tap water hookups to the entire population of the US, or Japan year after year. And it’s not just about the tap, because the program says that there will be regular water with a minimum quantity, namely 55 liters per person per day, which will meet the quality standards.
Fetching water was traditionally seen as a woman’s burden, and Jal Jeevan’s mission aimed to reduce that. Can you tell us how this program is meaningfully changing the lives of women in the field?
The mission sees women not only as beneficiaries of the program, but also as leaders, especially in the field. The conceptual phase itself insisted that each village should have a paani samiti or village committee for water and sanitation with at least half of its members being women, as well as ensuring adequate representation of people from disadvantaged classes. By supervising the implementation phase, women have a very critical role. The issue of water quality is important as contaminated water can lead to an outbreak of cholera or dysentery, so it was urged that at least five women per village be trained in the use of the field test kits included in the programme. Undoubtedly, the program has had the maximum impact on women’s lives. Historically, it has traditionally been the woman who is responsible for arranging drinking, cooking and other household purposes, whether water is available in her own home or whether she has to walk for miles. Young girls start doing this at a very young age. It’s so nice now that when you get down on the floor, the women of paani samitis come up and talk about the work they do. When you talk about water, they get fully charged. If you ask them if there should be usage fees, it’s always an unequivocal yes. We have this network of self-help groups of women in villages, and they play an important role because they collect from each household whatever the panchayat decides, say Rs 30 per month, and they make sure there is a pump operator, and the scheme works well . There are already 18 crore women who have already benefited by not having to go out to get water. They can use the time to study, spend time with their children, or even an economic activity, and they talk about it.
How does the Center manage to cope with micro-issues, for example those related to payment to contractors or even staff shortages at local level? What efforts are being made to address underspending of funds?
I think our experience with states and agencies dealing with JJM has been very fortunate where we work together. They contact us if they have a problem. For example, if there is a major project where you bring in water from a dam or a river, you may have to cross a railway line, or require state highways or environmental permits. Whenever states contacted us with these types of delays, we were able to respond quickly with fast-tracking where possible. All government departments have put in place fast tracking mechanisms and nodes to make this happen. There was a problem that contractors faced with inflationary issues, with global factors. Pipes are a very important part of all water projects. We have been working with the Ministry of Steel to contact contractors so they understand the sensitivities. The other major effort is working with states to make sure there’s no financial constraints, so if states weren’t getting money from their finance department, they’d tell us, and we’d reach out and make sure funds were be released. The government of India has been generous with funding but we have to recognize that departments in states working on this as part of the program have never done so much work so this is a huge increase in the amount of work to be done without compromise on quality. Expenditure on the program is doubling year after year. From Rs 10,000 crore in the beginning to Rs 92,000 crore last year. We are very optimistic that efforts across the country are paying off.
Successive governments have made efforts to bring water closer to human habitation. What has been different after 2019? Is there more focus on assessment and outcomes, especially data collection?
So efforts have been made all along to bring water closer to the population. But there is a difference. Some of them are technical parameters. The ambition is now to provide 55 liters per capita per day, compared to 40 liters in the past. We used to be content with bringing water close to homes, now we are not content with anything less than water in the home, including public institutions such as schools and anganwadis. As of 2020, huge efforts have been made to get schools covered. From five percent coverage of government schools, we’ve moved up to 88 percent, and from two percent coverage of anganwadis, we’ve moved up to almost 84 percent. That means 11.5 crore school children have benefited from access to piped water. Every effort is made to ensure that water reaches homes and institutions and, of course, to strengthen local communities. The other focus is academia. We have Chairs in IITs and IIMs. We have Indian and foreign development partners. One can click through the dashboard and check the status of this program in each village. So all information is there. The intention is to ensure full transparency and also to make data available to anyone interested. Speed, scale, sustainability and a government-wide approach, apart from building on the lessons of the past to know what worked and what didn’t.
What are the objectives for JJM for the coming year?
Nearly eight states and union territories have already achieved Har Ghar Jal status, meaning every rural household is covered here. We work with others who have not. There are two in the high 90 percent and another two in the high 80 percent. Basically, when we started looking at the details that needed attention, we found that out of 34 states and union territories, 13 accounted for 95 percent of the balance of work. The good news is that no one is at a low level. There is therefore no State or UT with a coverage of less than 30 percent. So all states have moved forward. So we are at a stage where work is moving very fast across the country. Older retirees have gone to villages to see what is going well and what needs corrective action. At the state level, we decide on the action plan and we tell them if you can look at increasing the scale of the work. There is a lot of micro-engagement, but certainly not to transcend the authority of the state. Ultimately, states are responsible for the issue, and they are doing a brilliant job.
