Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said five crore households across the country have been provided with water connection and tap water now reached every household in about 1.25 lakh villages.
Addressing gram panchayats and village water and sanitation committees (VWSC), the prime minister said the objective of the Jal Jeevan Mission was not just to make water accessible to the people, but a big movement of decentralisation.
The prime minister said the vision of Jal Jeevan Mission was village-driven and women-driven movement, and its main base is mass movement and public participation.
Pointing out that from the time of independence till 2019, only three crore households in the country had access to tap water, he said since the launch of Jal Jeevan Mission in 2019, five crore households have been connected with water connections.
“Today, water is reaching every household in about 1.25 lakh villages in about 80 districts of the country. In the aspirational districts the number of tap connections have increased from 31 lakh to 1.16 crore,” he said, asserting that in just two years, more work has been done than was done in the last seven decades.
He appealed to every citizen of the country who lives with an abundance of water, to make more efforts to save water, and called upon them to change their habits too.
The prime minister also listed out measures to improve the health and safety of the daughters of the country such as toilets in every home and school, affordable sanitary pads, nutrition support during pregnancy and immunisation.
Earlier, he interacted with gram Sabha and pani samiti members from Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu and Manipur.
The prime minister also launched the Jal Jeevan Mission app for improving awareness among stakeholders and for greater transparency and accountability of schemes under the mission.
He also launched the Rashtriya Jal Jeevan Kosh, where any individual, institution, corporate or philanthropist, be it in India or abroad, can contribute to help provide tap water connection in every rural household, school, anganwadi centre, ashramshala and other public institutions.
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