Vini Mahajan is Union Secretary in the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation.
Under the central government's ambitious Jal Jeevan Mission, which promises to provide every rural household with piped water, nearly eight states and union territories have already achieved the 'Har Ghar Jal' status. There is no state today with less than 30 per cent coverage, said Vini Mahajan, secretary in the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Ministry of Jal Shakti, in an interview. She added that the focus now is on 13 states that account for the majority of the balance of work, and one of the biggest accomplishments of the programme was bringing piped water access to 84% of government schools in rural India.
Here are edited excerpts from the interview:
When the Jal Shakti ministry was formed in 2019, there were speculations over its working, considering water is a State subject. The goal itself was seen as ambitious, as the coverage of households with piped water was less than 20%. What has been the progress of the programme 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 PM Narendra Modi, in his Independence Day address in 2019, said that the country would move forward at speed and scale, and would ensure drinking water to every rural household, the states of the country were in very different places. There were states with less than 1% coverage, and there were states that had gone up to 99%. The agroclimatic conditions are different in states, with some of them being water-stressed and others having ample water but 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 that had reported access to piped water supply. The task was humongous, but the good thing is that the program saw a combination of factors come together to result in some amazing outcomes in a short period. These factors started with political will, starting from the highest levels to going down to villages. Village communities were made to sync with this vision. There was huge funding made available as per requirement. We are talking about an order of Rs 3.6 lakh crore that was expected in 2019. States have participated with their share too. There was a need to engage with communities and foster good partnerships. We are proud that coverage of less than 17% in 2019 is now over coverage of 60%. In this short span of time, over 8.5 crore rural households have received tap connections. These figures are like giving the whole population of the USA tap water connections, or year after year, covering Japan. And, it is not about the tap alone, as the program says there will be regular water at a minimum quantity, which is 55 litres per person every day, that will meet the quality norms.
Fetching water traditionally has been seen as a woman's burden, and the Jal Jeevan Mission was centred around reducing that. Can you tell us how this program is meaningfully changing the lives of women on the ground?
The mission sees women not just as beneficiaries of the program but as leaders, certainly on the ground. At the conceptual stage itself, it was insisted that every village must have a paani samiti or a village water and sanitation committee with at least half of its members as women and also ensure adequate representation of people from deprived classes. Through the oversight of 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 there was an insistence that at least five women per village get trained in using the field-testing kits that come with the program. Undoubtedly, the program has had the maximum impact on women's lives. Historically, traditionally, it is the woman who has the responsibility of arranging drinking, cooking, and other household purposes, regardless of whether the water is available in her own house or she has to walk for miles. Young girls start at a very young age to do this. It is such a pleasure now that when you go on the ground, the women of paani samitis come forward and talk about the work they do. When you talk about water, they get totally charged. When you ask them if there should be user charges, it is always an unequivocal yes. We have this network of self-help groups of women across villages, and they play an important role because they collect from every household whatever the panchayat decides, say Rs 30 a month, and they make sure there is a pump operator in place, and the scheme works well. There are 18 crore women benefited already by not having to go out to fetch water. They can use the time to study, spend time with their children, or even some economic activity, and they talk about.
How is the Centre managing to navigate micro-issues, for instance, those related to the payment to contractors or even staff crunch at local levels? What are the efforts being made to address the underutilization of funds?
I think our experience with states and agencies dealing with JJM has been a very happy one where we are working together. They reach out to us whenever they have a problem. For instance, when there is a large scheme where you are bringing in water from a dam or a river, you may be crossing a railway line, or national highway or environmental clearances may be needed. Whenever states reached out to us with these kinds of delays, we could quickly respond wherever it was possible with fast-tracking. All the government departments put in place fast-tracking mechanisms, and nodal persons to get this done. There was a problem that contractors were facing with inflationary issues, with global factors. Pipes are a very important component of all water projects. We worked with the Ministry of Steel on this to reach out to contractors, making them understand the sensitivities involved. The other important effort is working with states to ensure there were no financial constraints, so if states were not getting money from their finance department, they would tell us, and we would reach out and make sure funds would 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 this much work, so this is a quantum increase in the amount of work to be done with no compromise on quality. The spending on the program, year after year, is seeing a doubling. From Rs 10,000 crore in the beginning to Rs 92,000 crore last year. We are very sanguine that efforts being made across the country are yielding efforts.
Successive governments have made efforts to bring water closer to habitation. What has been different after 2019? Is there more focus on assessment and outcomes, particularly data collection?
So, there have been efforts throughout to get water closer to populations. But there is a difference. Some of them are technical parameters. The ambition now is to ensure 55 litres per capita per day, as opposed to 40 litres earlier. Earlier, we were satisfied with bringing water close to homes, now we are not satisfied with anything less than water in the home, which includes public institutions such as schools and anganwadis. There was a massive effort starting in 2020 to get schools covered. From a five per cent coverage of government schools, we have moved to 88 per cent, and from a two per cent coverage of anganwadis, we moved to nearly 84 per cent. That means 11.5 crore schoolchildren have benefited from access to piped drinking water. There is an all-around effort to make sure water reaches houses and institutions and, of course, empower the local communities. The other focus is academia. We have professor chairs in IITs and IIMs. We have Indian and foreign development partners. One can drill down the dashboard and check the status of this program in any village. So all the information is out there. The intent is to make sure there is complete transparency, and also make data available to anyone interested. Speed, scale, sustainability, and a whole-of-government approach, apart from building on the lessons of the past to know what worked and what didn't have helped.
What are the targets set for JJM for the coming year?
Nearly eight states and union territories have already achieved Har Ghar Jal status, which means every rural household here has been covered. We are working with others who haven't. There are two in the high 90 per cent and another two in the high 80 per cent. Basically, when we started looking at the details that needed attention, we found that of the 34 States and union territories, there were 13 that accounted for 95 per cent of the balance of work. The good news is that there is nobody at a low level. This means there is no State or UT with less than 30 per cent coverage. So, all States have moved ahead. So, we are at a stage where work across the country is going on very fast. Senior retired people have been going 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 may look at increasing the scale of the work. There is a lot of micro-engagement, but definitely not to supersede the authority of the State. Eventually, States are responsible for the subject, and they are doing brilliant work.