'Nal se jal' target: Ministry to work on ways to meet infrastructure cost

Tasked with delivering Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s poll promise of “Nal se Jal”, the water ministry is set to work with various ministries to make the scheme economically and environmentally viable while providing piped drinking water to all households by 2024.

The Jal Shakti ministry, which was officially constituted on Monday, is likely to collaborate with the housing and urban poverty alleviation and the rural development ministries to achieve a countrywide coverage for the scheme, a senior government official said. The government, while considering pricing the drinking water supply, will also discuss ways to meet the cost of creating infrastructure for tap water in rural and urban areas. 

According to government data, only 18 per cent of the country receives piped drinking water with more than 400 million households still cut off. In states such as Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha the coverage of tap water is less than 5 per cent. 

On the lines of Swachch Bharat Abhiyan, where a separate allowance of Rs 12,000 was made for each household to construct a toilet under PM Awaas Yojana-gramin, the government is likely to push for piped water connections through the same scheme in rural areas, another senior government official said. 

“We are very good at creating one-time infrastructure but there is no one to maintain it. Infrastructure has not been spelt out yet but robust structures have to be created to avoid water leakages and broken pipelines,” said Bharat Shah, senior fellow, International Water Management Institute. 

The government is also considering to put a cap on the number of hours a day when the drinking tap water will be made available. “There is a concern of wastage if 24x7 water is available to all households in the country. We need to push for a behavioral change as well to save fast depleting water resources,” the senior government official added. 

According to a NITI Aayog study, the country’s water demand is projected to be twice the available supply by 2030, implying severe water scarcity for hundreds of millions of people and an eventual 6 per cent loss in the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). 

The Jal Shakti ministry plans to utilise ground and surface water, depending on the region to provide drinking water. However, in states such as Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan where both these resources are scarce, transportation of water will be an added challenge. 

A NITI Aayog report predicted that 21 cities in India will see the total depletion of their groundwater by as early as 2020. 

The per capita water availability in the country has come down from 5,000 cubic meters in 1950s to 1,400 cubic meters at present, according to the water resources department. 

According to the National Commission for Integrated Water Resource Development, the water requirement by 2050 in high-use scenario is likely to be a milder 1,180 billion cubic meter (BCM), whereas the present-day availability is 695 BCM. 

While taking a leaf, from Bihar’s initiative to provide drinking water to 20 million households for a basic user fees, the Modi government has sought inputs from all states to draw up a final action plan for its ambitious scheme. 

In its 2019 manifesto, the BJP had also promised that it would launch the “Jal Jivan Mission”, under which its government would ensure piped water for every household by 2024. The manifesto had added that the government would ensure “sustainability of water supply through a special focus on conservation of rural water bodies and ground water recharge”. 

The Jal Shakti ministry has been created by reorganising the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, which Nitin Gadkari headed in the previous term of the government. The Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation is also part of the new ministry.