Jal Jeevan Mission: A mammoth task, a sea of business opportunities

The mission requires a staggering Rs 3.5 trillion to cover piping to 90,000 households a day for five years; this is where private participation might become crucial

“How to ensure availability of water in every house? How does every house get water, pure drinking water? And so I declare from the Red Fort today, that in the days to come, we will take forward the Jal Jeevan Mission,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his Independence Day speech. 

The alarming proportions India's water crisis has acquired are quite well known. Several cities are slated to “run out of water” in a decade. In villages, too, the situation is grim--less than half the population can barely use 50 litres of water a day, India’s national auditor told the