BHUBANESWAR: The Centre has released Rs 830.85 crore to the State to provide tap water supply to rural households under Jal Jeevan Mission.
The Ministry of Jal Shakti had given a massive budgetary allocation of Rs 3,323.42 crore to the State in July 2021.
The Central allocation under the scheme was Rs 812.15 crore in 2020-21. Out of 85.67 lakh rural households in the State, 35.37 lakh (41.28 per cent) households have tap water supply in their homes. Water supply work is in full swing in villages and government plans to cover all the rural households by 2024.
The Mission is implemented in a decentralised 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 and maintenance.
As on date, the State has constituted 3,695 village water and sanitation committees and 2,345 village action plans have been developed.
The programme encourages participation by women as they are the primary water managers in households.
Six implementing support agencies (ISAs) have been engaged in the State to create awareness about the mission, sensitise the village community on the importance of safe water.
As many as 17,756 women have been trained to conduct water quality testing using field test kits. Efforts are also being made to ensure tap water availability for drinking, cooking mid-day meals, hand washing and usage in toilets in all schools and anganwadi centres (AWCs). So far, 36,372 schools (67 percent) and 29,097 (54 percent) AWCs have been provided tap water supply.
With focus on public health, 77 water testing laboratories have been opened where people can get their water samples tested at a nominal cost.
On August 15, 2019, at the time of the launch of the Jal Jeevan Mission, only 3.10 lakh (3.63 per cent) households in Odisha had tap water connections.