Clean tap water connections to over 10 crore rural households and open defecation free-plus status for 1.42 lakh villages were among some key achievements for the Jal Shakti Ministry this year.
While rural households in seven states and Union territories had 100 per cent coverage of tap water connection, as many as 10 states and Union territories had less than 50 per cent coverage. Jharkhand (24 per cent) and Lakshadweep (0 per cent) had lowest coverage in the country.
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In 2022, as many as 2,12,38,629 households got clean water tap connections bringing the total number of such rural households to 10,78,51,019.
The government has promised 100 per cent tap water connections to all rural households by 2024. A total of 19,36,06,464 rural households have been identified in rural India.
Also, 1,42,799 villages have declared themselves ODF plus. Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana and Odisha are the top five performing states with maximum number of ODF plus declared villages.
ODF plus village is a village which sustains its ODF status, ensures solid and liquid waste management and is visually clean.
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Under the Swachh Bharat Mission (Grameen), 2.02 crore individual household latrines and 1.97 lakh community sanitary complexes were constructed from 2019-20 to 2022-23, according to official data.
The National Mission for Clean Ganga entered the Arth Ganga phase this year under which a sustainable development model with a focus on economic activities related to Ganga was focussed upon.
Under Arth Ganga, various innovative campaigns are being undertaken like monetising treated sewage and dirty water that is removed from the Ganga river and selling it to the Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) and using fortified Ganga sludge as substitute for chemical fertilisers.
Under the Namami Gange Programme, a total 406 projects have been sanctioned and out of these, 224 projects were completed this year which accounts for 55 per cent of total projects sanctioned.
The impediments faced during implementation of infrastructure and sewerage projects included: delays in obtaining permissions for road cutting, railways/NH crossings, land procurement, forest clearances, change of sites, COVID-19, abnormal floods etc. However, steps have been taken to address these issues and the project completion has gained momentum, a senior official said.
The 38th Meeting of Ministerial level Joint Rivers Commission of India and Bangladesh was held in New Delhi in August in which discussions were held on a number of ongoing bilateral issues of mutual interest including river water sharing of common rivers, sharing of flood data, addressing river pollution, conducting joint studies on sedimentation management, river bank protection works etc.
India and Bangladesh share 54 rivers, of which seven rivers have been identified earlier for developing the framework of water sharing agreements on priority.
The Ken-Betwa river link project also started this year, becoming the first link under the National Perspective Plan for which implementation has started.
The Ken-Betwa scheme, the first being implemented under the National River Linking Project (NRLP), seeks to bring nearly 11 lakh hectares of land under irrigation in the parched Bundelkhand region straddling Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
The NRLP proposes transfer of water from water-surplus basins where there is flooding to water-deficit basins where there is drought and scarcity through inter-basin water transfer projects.
Last month, a new government report showed how about 14 per cent of India's 7,089 groundwater assessment units are over-exploited while 4 per cent fall under the critical category.
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