The Govt should come up with a comprehensive roadmap and the States have to step up their efforts for successfully achieving the JJM target

India is a water stressed nation with per capita water availability of about 1,544 cubic metres. It has been ranked 13th among 17 extremely water-stressed countries as listed by the Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas released by the World Resources Institute (WRI). The country, closely followed by neighbouring Pakistan, was under “extremely high” levels of baseline water stress. As many as 12 of the 17 water stressed countries were from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and the document warned that climate change may complicate the crisis in coming years.

A region is said to be water-stressed when the demand exceeds the available volume of water or when poor quality restricts its use. Alarmingly, both groundwater and surface water in the country are extremely exploited. In a grim reflection of the situation in the country, groundwater levels declined by more than eight centimetres per year between 1990 and 2014 in northern India.

The rapidly declining per capita water share, source vulnerability and growing contamination of groundwater are some of the causes for serious concern India. Both surface and groundwater resources are highly exploited and figures released by the Ministry of Jal Shakti paint a dismal picture. About 1,186 of 6,881 groundwater “assessment units” are categorised as over-exploited. It has been reported that India extracts more groundwater than China and the US combined. Also, the latest report of the Niti Aayog mentions that 21 cities of the country will exhaust their groundwater resources soon. Of the States and Union Territories, Chandigarh was the most water-stressed, followed by Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

To address these concerns, the Union Government launched the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) which promises water to every household in the country by 2024. In the Union Budget 2020, under the head of Wellness, Water and Sanitation scheme, (about Rs 3.60 lakh crore was approved earlier for the JJM) Rs 11,500 crore has been allocated for 2020-2021. The main focus this time will be on source sustainability and augmentation. Various water conservation measures like rainwater harvesting, renovation or rejuvenation of tanks and lakes, reuse of waste water, development of recharge structures, desalination along with watershed development and intensive afforestation will also be undertaken. These measures will not only enhance the water availability of the country but also ensure sustainability of the available resource. This is a much appreciated step as it was the need of the hour. The Government’s plan is a well-thought-out approach which will focus on the source which is needed for sustainable management of the resource.

However, the allocated Budget for 2020-21 is just 15 per cent higher than the previous year’s Budget that was around Rs 10,000 crore (the allocation for 2019-20 was almost double of that for 2018-19). It is an ambitious target to be achieved in the next five years, given that previously the National Rural Drinking Water Programme (currently subsumed under the JJM) aimed at providing drinking water supply in rural areas by 2030 at an estimated cost of Rs 6 lakh crore. But the JJM has low Budget allocations with a shorter timeline. Also, the allocation this year is just about three per cent of the total Budget sanctioned for the scheme, given that the first year is critical to impart momentum to this flagship programme. Also, there are lessons to be learnt from past programmes such as the National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) which has now been subsumed under the JJM.

The target under the NRDWP was to provide piped water tap connections to 35 per cent of rural households by 2017 but the latest figures of 2019 showed that the connections have only reached around 18 per cent of the households. The performance of NRDWP was not very satisfactory and some of the reasons were that the contribution of States was on the lower side. Also, some States faced paucity of funds for the piped water scheme. Telangana had to borrow money from banks to operationalise its mission for piped drinking water supply from surface water sources (Mission Bhagiratha). Another key factor was that the allocated amount usually remained unspent because of late submission of proposals and the long time taken for implementation of the sanctioned projects.

The Government should come up with a comprehensive road map and the States have to step up their efforts for successfully achieving the mission target. Perhaps 2020 is a crucial year for both the Centre and the State Governments to overcome the challenges and expedite the implementation process.

 (Grover is Fellow and Seth is Research Associate, Water Resources, TERI) India is a water stressed nation with per capita water availability of about 1,544 cubic metres. It has been ranked 13th among 17 extremely water-stressed countries as listed by the Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas released by the World Resources Institute (WRI). The country, closely followed by neighbouring Pakistan, was under “extremely high” levels of baseline water stress. As many as 12 of the 17 water stressed countries were from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and the document warned that climate change may complicate the crisis in coming years.

A region is said to be water-stressed when the demand exceeds the available volume of water or when poor quality restricts its use. Alarmingly, both groundwater and surface water in the country are extremely exploited. In a grim reflection of the situation in the country, groundwater levels declined by more than eight centimetres per year between 1990 and 2014 in northern India.

The rapidly declining per capita water share, source vulnerability and growing contamination of groundwater are some of the causes for serious concern India. Both surface and groundwater resources are highly exploited and figures released by the Ministry of Jal Shakti paint a dismal picture. About 1,186 of 6,881 groundwater “assessment units” are categorised as over-exploited. It has been reported that India extracts more groundwater than China and the US combined. Also, the latest report of the Niti Aayog mentions that 21 cities of the country will exhaust their groundwater resources soon. Of the States and Union Territories, Chandigarh was the most water-stressed, followed by Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

To address these concerns, the Union Government launched the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) which promises water to every household in the country by 2024. In the Union Budget 2020, under the head of Wellness, Water and Sanitation scheme, (about Rs 3.60 lakh crore was approved earlier for the JJM) Rs 11,500 crore has been allocated for 2020-2021. The main focus this time will be on source sustainability and augmentation. Various water conservation measures like rainwater harvesting, renovation or rejuvenation of tanks and lakes, reuse of waste water, development of recharge structures, desalination along with watershed development and intensive afforestation will also be undertaken. These measures will not only enhance the water availability of the country but also ensure sustainability of the available resource. This is a much appreciated step as it was the need of the hour. The Government’s plan is a well-thought-out approach which will focus on the source which is needed for sustainable management of the resource.

However, the allocated Budget for 2020-21 is just 15 per cent higher than the previous year’s Budget that was around Rs 10,000 crore (the allocation for 2019-20 was almost double of that for 2018-19). It is an ambitious target to be achieved in the next five years, given that previously the National Rural Drinking Water Programme (currently subsumed under the JJM) aimed at providing drinking water supply in rural areas by 2030 at an estimated cost of Rs 6 lakh crore. But the JJM has low Budget allocations with a shorter timeline. Also, the allocation this year is just about three per cent of the total Budget sanctioned for the scheme, given that the first year is critical to impart momentum to this flagship programme. Also, there are lessons to be learnt from past programmes such as the National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) which has now been subsumed under the JJM.

The target under the NRDWP was to provide piped water tap connections to 35 per cent of rural households by 2017 but the latest figures of 2019 showed that the connections have only reached around 18 per cent of the households. The performance of NRDWP was not very satisfactory and some of the reasons were that the contribution of States was on the lower side. Also, some States faced paucity of funds for the piped water scheme. Telangana had to borrow money from banks to operationalise its mission for piped drinking water supply from surface water sources (Mission Bhagiratha). Another key factor was that the allocated amount usually remained unspent because of late submission of proposals and the long time taken for implementation of the sanctioned projects.

The Government should come up with a comprehensive road map and the States have to step up their efforts for successfully achieving the mission target. Perhaps 2020 is a crucial year for both the Centre and the State Governments to overcome the challenges and expedite the implementation process.

 (Grover is Fellow and Seth is Research Associate, Water Resources, TERI) India is a water stressed nation with per capita water availability of about 1,544 cubic metres. It has been ranked 13th among 17 extremely water-stressed countries as listed by the Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas released by the World Resources Institute (WRI). The country, closely followed by neighbouring Pakistan, was under “extremely high” levels of baseline water stress. As many as 12 of the 17 water stressed countries were from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and the document warned that climate change may complicate the crisis in coming years.

A region is said to be water-stressed when the demand exceeds the available volume of water or when poor quality restricts its use. Alarmingly, both groundwater and surface water in the country are extremely exploited. In a grim reflection of the situation in the country, groundwater levels declined by more than eight centimetres per year between 1990 and 2014 in northern India.

The rapidly declining per capita water share, source vulnerability and growing contamination of groundwater are some of the causes for serious concern India. Both surface and groundwater resources are highly exploited and figures released by the Ministry of Jal Shakti paint a dismal picture. About 1,186 of 6,881 groundwater “assessment units” are categorised as over-exploited. It has been reported that India extracts more groundwater than China and the US combined. Also, the latest report of the Niti Aayog mentions that 21 cities of the country will exhaust their groundwater resources soon. Of the States and Union Territories, Chandigarh was the most water-stressed, followed by Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

To address these concerns, the Union Government launched the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) which promises water to every household in the country by 2024. In the Union Budget 2020, under the head of Wellness, Water and Sanitation scheme, (about Rs 3.60 lakh crore was approved earlier for the JJM) Rs 11,500 crore has been allocated for 2020-2021. The main focus this time will be on source sustainability and augmentation. Various water conservation measures like rainwater harvesting, renovation or rejuvenation of tanks and lakes, reuse of waste water, development of recharge structures, desalination along with watershed development and intensive afforestation will also be undertaken. These measures will not only enhance the water availability of the country but also ensure sustainability of the available resource. This is a much appreciated step as it was the need of the hour. The Government’s plan is a well-thought-out approach which will focus on the source which is needed for sustainable management of the resource.

However, the allocated Budget for 2020-21 is just 15 per cent higher than the previous year’s Budget that was around Rs 10,000 crore (the allocation for 2019-20 was almost double of that for 2018-19). It is an ambitious target to be achieved in the next five years, given that previously the National Rural Drinking Water Programme (currently subsumed under the JJM) aimed at providing drinking water supply in rural areas by 2030 at an estimated cost of Rs 6 lakh crore. But the JJM has low Budget allocations with a shorter timeline. Also, the allocation this year is just about three per cent of the total Budget sanctioned for the scheme, given that the first year is critical to impart momentum to this flagship programme. Also, there are lessons to be learnt from past programmes such as the National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) which has now been subsumed under the JJM.

The target under the NRDWP was to provide piped water tap connections to 35 per cent of rural households by 2017 but the latest figures of 2019 showed that the connections have only reached around 18 per cent of the households. The performance of NRDWP was not very satisfactory and some of the reasons were that the contribution of States was on the lower side. Also, some States faced paucity of funds for the piped water scheme. Telangana had to borrow money from banks to operationalise its mission for piped drinking water supply from surface water sources (Mission Bhagiratha). Another key factor was that the allocated amount usually remained unspent because of late submission of proposals and the long time taken for implementation of the sanctioned projects.

The Government should come up with a comprehensive road map and the States have to step up their efforts for successfully achieving the mission target. Perhaps 2020 is a crucial year for both the Centre and the State Governments to overcome the challenges and expedite the implementation process.

 (Grover is Fellow and Seth is Research Associate, Water Resources, TERI) India is a water stressed nation with per capita water availability of about 1,544 cubic metres. It has been ranked 13th among 17 extremely water-stressed countries as listed by the Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas released by the World Resources Institute (WRI). The country, closely followed by neighbouring Pakistan, was under “extremely high” levels of baseline water stress. As many as 12 of the 17 water stressed countries were from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and the document warned that climate change may complicate the crisis in coming years.

A region is said to be water-stressed when the demand exceeds the available volume of water or when poor quality restricts its use. Alarmingly, both groundwater and surface water in the country are extremely exploited. In a grim reflection of the situation in the country, groundwater levels declined by more than eight centimetres per year between 1990 and 2014 in northern India.

The rapidly declining per capita water share, source vulnerability and growing contamination of groundwater are some of the causes for serious concern India. Both surface and groundwater resources are highly exploited and figures released by the Ministry of Jal Shakti paint a dismal picture. About 1,186 of 6,881 groundwater “assessment units” are categorised as over-exploited. It has been reported that India extracts more groundwater than China and the US combined. Also, the latest report of the Niti Aayog mentions that 21 cities of the country will exhaust their groundwater resources soon. Of the States and Union Territories, Chandigarh was the most water-stressed, followed by Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

To address these concerns, the Union Government launched the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) which promises water to every household in the country by 2024. In the Union Budget 2020, under the head of Wellness, Water and Sanitation scheme, (about Rs 3.60 lakh crore was approved earlier for the JJM) Rs 11,500 crore has been allocated for 2020-2021. The main focus this time will be on source sustainability and augmentation. Various water conservation measures like rainwater harvesting, renovation or rejuvenation of tanks and lakes, reuse of waste water, development of recharge structures, desalination along with watershed development and intensive afforestation will also be undertaken. These measures will not only enhance the water availability of the country but also ensure sustainability of the available resource. This is a much appreciated step as it was the need of the hour. The Government’s plan is a well-thought-out approach which will focus on the source which is needed for sustainable management of the resource.

However, the allocated Budget for 2020-21 is just 15 per cent higher than the previous year’s Budget that was around Rs 10,000 crore (the allocation for 2019-20 was almost double of that for 2018-19). It is an ambitious target to be achieved in the next five years, given that previously the National Rural Drinking Water Programme (currently subsumed under the JJM) aimed at providing drinking water supply in rural areas by 2030 at an estimated cost of Rs 6 lakh crore. But the JJM has low Budget allocations with a shorter timeline. Also, the allocation this year is just about three per cent of the total Budget sanctioned for the scheme, given that the first year is critical to impart momentum to this flagship programme. Also, there are lessons to be learnt from past programmes such as the National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) which has now been subsumed under the JJM.

The target under the NRDWP was to provide piped water tap connections to 35 per cent of rural households by 2017 but the latest figures of 2019 showed that the connections have only reached around 18 per cent of the households. The performance of NRDWP was not very satisfactory and some of the reasons were that the contribution of States was on the lower side. Also, some States faced paucity of funds for the piped water scheme. Telangana had to borrow money from banks to operationalise its mission for piped drinking water supply from surface water sources (Mission Bhagiratha). Another key factor was that the allocated amount usually remained unspent because of late submission of proposals and the long time taken for implementation of the sanctioned projects.

The Government should come up with a comprehensive road map and the States have to step up their efforts for successfully achieving the mission target. Perhaps 2020 is a crucial year for both the Centre and the State Governments to overcome the challenges and expedite the implementation process.

 (Grover is Fellow and Seth is Research Associate, Water Resources, TERI) India is a water stressed nation with per capita water availability of about 1,544 cubic metres. It has been ranked 13th among 17 extremely water-stressed countries as listed by the Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas released by the World Resources Institute (WRI). The country, closely followed by neighbouring Pakistan, was under “extremely high” levels of baseline water stress. As many as 12 of the 17 water stressed countries were from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and the document warned that climate change may complicate the crisis in coming years.

A region is said to be water-stressed when the demand exceeds the available volume of water or when poor quality restricts its use. Alarmingly, both groundwater and surface water in the country are extremely exploited. In a grim reflection of the situation in the country, groundwater levels declined by more than eight centimetres per year between 1990 and 2014 in northern India.

The rapidly declining per capita water share, source vulnerability and growing contamination of groundwater are some of the causes for serious concern India. Both surface and groundwater resources are highly exploited and figures released by the Ministry of Jal Shakti paint a dismal picture. About 1,186 of 6,881 groundwater “assessment units” are categorised as over-exploited. It has been reported that India extracts more groundwater than China and the US combined. Also, the latest report of the Niti Aayog mentions that 21 cities of the country will exhaust their groundwater resources soon. Of the States and Union Territories, Chandigarh was the most water-stressed, followed by Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

To address these concerns, the Union Government launched the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) which promises water to every household in the country by 2024. In the Union Budget 2020, under the head of Wellness, Water and Sanitation scheme, (about Rs 3.60 lakh crore was approved earlier for the JJM) Rs 11,500 crore has been allocated for 2020-2021. The main focus this time will be on source sustainability and augmentation. Various water conservation measures like rainwater harvesting, renovation or rejuvenation of tanks and lakes, reuse of waste water, development of recharge structures, desalination along with watershed development and intensive afforestation will also be undertaken. These measures will not only enhance the water availability of the country but also ensure sustainability of the available resource. This is a much appreciated step as it was the need of the hour. The Government’s plan is a well-thought-out approach which will focus on the source which is needed for sustainable management of the resource.

However, the allocated Budget for 2020-21 is just 15 per cent higher than the previous year’s Budget that was around Rs 10,000 crore (the allocation for 2019-20 was almost double of that for 2018-19). It is an ambitious target to be achieved in the next five years, given that previously the National Rural Drinking Water Programme (currently subsumed under the JJM) aimed at providing drinking water supply in rural areas by 2030 at an estimated cost of Rs 6 lakh crore. But the JJM has low Budget allocations with a shorter timeline. Also, the allocation this year is just about three per cent of the total Budget sanctioned for the scheme, given that the first year is critical to impart momentum to this flagship programme. Also, there are lessons to be learnt from past programmes such as the National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) which has now been subsumed under the JJM.

The target under the NRDWP was to provide piped water tap connections to 35 per cent of rural households by 2017 but the latest figures of 2019 showed that the connections have only reached around 18 per cent of the households. The performance of NRDWP was not very satisfactory and some of the reasons were that the contribution of States was on the lower side. Also, some States faced paucity of funds for the piped water scheme. Telangana had to borrow money from banks to operationalise its mission for piped drinking water supply from surface water sources (Mission Bhagiratha). Another key factor was that the allocated amount usually remained unspent because of late submission of proposals and the long time taken for implementation of the sanctioned projects.

The Government should come up with a comprehensive road map and the States have to step up their efforts for successfully achieving the mission target. Perhaps 2020 is a crucial year for both the Centre and the State Governments to overcome the challenges and expedite the implementation process.

 (Grover is Fellow and Seth is Research Associate, Water Resources, TERI)