Six NE states including Assam, vow tap water for all rural homes by 2026
Of the total 72.25 lakh rural households in Assam, 81.32 per cent (58.76 lakh) have been provided with tap water.
Jal Board's water supply in vast areas of the city was disrupted thrice due to damage and faults in the newly installed pipelines
New Delhi, May 3: Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura have assured the Centre of providing tap water connections to all rural households by March 2026.
These six states from the Northeast were among 15 states and union territories assuring the Union Jal Shakti Ministry of providing tap water to all rural households by next year.
Disclosing this to The Assam Tribune, a Jal Shakti Ministry official said that of the total 72.25 lakh rural households in Assam, 81.32 per cent (58.76 lakh) have been provided with tap water.
“The Assam government has assured that the remaining 13.49 lakh rural households will be provided with tap water connections by March next year,” the official said.
In Manipur, of the total 4.52 lakh rural households, at least 79.59 per cent – which is 3.59 lakh – have been provided with tap water, and 0.92 lakh households will be provided by March next year.
In Meghalaya, of the total 6.51 lakh rural households, at least 5.32 lakh (81.76 per cent) have been provided with tap water connections till February this year, and the remaining 1.19 lakh households will be provided by next March.
In Nagaland, of the total 3.64 lakh rural households, tap water connections have been provided to 3.37 lakh (92.69 per cent) till February, and the remaining 0.27 lakh households will be provided by next March.
In Tripura, at least 6.38 lakh households – or 84.95 per cent – have been provided with tap water connections. The state has 7.51 lakh rural households.
The official said that many states have reported that the “long gestation period of multivillage schemes, lack of dependable groundwater sources in drought-prone and desert areas, geogenic contamination, terrain challenges in hilly and forested areas, and lack of technical capabilities in the states have been hampering the mission of providing tap water connections.”
According to the official, delays in clearances from nodal agencies, availability of matching state share, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic and the nationwide lockdown, etc., slowed down the pace of implementation.
The Centre had launched the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) on August 15, 2019, to provide tap water connections to rural households in partnership with the States.
The total estimated outlay of JJM was Rs 3.60 lakh crore, out of which the central share was Rs 2.08 lakh crore over a period of 5 years.
At the time of the announcement of the JJM, 3.23 crore rural households (17 per cent) of the country had tap water connections. Since then, around 12.19 crore families living in rural areas have been provided with tap water connections in their homes.
“Now, out of more than 19.36 crore rural households, around 15.45 crore (79.81 per cent) rural families of the country have potable tap water supply in their homes,” the ministry official said.
During her Budget speech of 2025-26, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman had announced extension of the JJM till 2028.
By
A correspondent