Punjab government will strengthen activities under Jal Jeevan Mission

Ravi S Singh

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 6

 The Punjab government will further strengthen activities, including strengthening of Village Water and Sanitation Committee(VWSC) and setting up more water testing laboratories under the Centre’s flagship Jal Jeevan Mission(JJM).

The JJM, implemented by the Jal Shakti Ministry in coordination with the State governments, aims to provide piped drinking water to every rural household in the country by 2024.

The State government recently apprised the Jal Shakti Ministry that it has planned to build the capacity of over 60 thousand stakeholders which includes government officials, public health engineers, village water and sanitation committee, surveillance committee and Panchayat members in 2021-22.

Additionally, more than 8 thousand people in the State will be trained under skill training programme.

Skilling of local people will be ensured to work as mason, plumber, fitter, electrician and pump operator. Such initiative of providing employment in the villages under skilled and semi-skilled sections will provide income generating opportunities in villages.

“With focus on public health, more than 2,000 water quality testing laboratories in the country have been opened to general public so that they can get their water samples tested whenever they so desire at a nominal cost,” a Jal Shakti Ministry’s functionary said.

Punjab has 33 water testing laboratories. More are planned to be set up in coming times.

Efforts are made to ensure tap water availability for drinking, cooking mid-day meal, washing hands and usage in toilets in all schools and anganwadi centres.

As on date, 22,389 schools (100%) and 22,120 (100%) anganwadi centres in Punjab have been provided with tap water supply.

JJM is implemented in a decentralized manner following the ‘bottom-up’ approach, wherein the local village community plays a key role starting from planning to implementation and from management to operation & maintenance.

A few days ago, the Centre released Central Grant of Rs 402 crore to the State of Punjab for speedy implementation of JJM.

In 2021-22, Punjab plans to provide tap water connections to 8.69 lakh rural households.

There are 34.41 lakh rural households in the state, out of which 31.55 lakh rural households (91.68%) have tap water connection.