West Bengal, Meghalaya going slow on Jal Jeevan Mission- Centre tells the two states

New Delhi: Both West Bengal and Meghalaya have been lagging behind considerably in meeting their Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) targets and spending allocated funds the Jal Shakti ministry has recently conveyed to the state governments.

The ministry is pushing all states to immediately start works related to water supply and conservation in villages to help generate jobs for migrants returning from cities due to COVID 19 and is currently assessing each state’s proposed annual action plan under the JJM for the same.

The Jal Jeevan Mission- announced by PM Modi last year- envisages supply of 55 litres of water per person per day through a functional household tap water connection.


It has last week observed that while all the states have submitted their proposed annual action plans for the Jal Jeevan Mission over the last few months, Mamata Banerjee led West Bengal is yet to do so.

The state, the ministry has said, has 1.63 Crore rural households spread over 41,357 villages, but only 2 lakh households have a tap connection in their premises.

“In 2019-20, against a target of 32.24 lakh households to be given tap connections, State could provide only 4,720 household tap connections. Those which have been left out in such villages belong to poor and marginalized sections of the society. There is a potential to provide 1.08 Crore household tap connections in these villages. In 2020-21, the target fixed for providing tap connections is 64.43 lakh households including the shortfall of about 32.19 lakh from the previous year”, the ministry has said.

It has added that West Bengal needs to to push this agenda forward on ‘campiagn mode’ to provide household tap connections in next 4-6 months.

It has further noted that the state government has failed to utilize the Central funding for the same. As per the Jal Shakti ministry, in 2019-20, Rs. 993.88 Crore of Central funds was released to the State but only Rs 421.63 Crore was utilized and the rest is lying unspent. Of the Rs 1305 crore set aside to provide potable water in Arsenic/ Fluoride-affected habitations, Rs. 573.36 Crore is still lying unspent.

Jal Shakti minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat has also written to the Chief Minister of Meghalaya expressing his concerns over the slow progress of Jal Jeevan Mission in the State.

Against the target of providing tap connections to 1.17 lakh households in the year 2019-20, only 1,800 tap connections were given. Meghalaya was allocated Rs 86.02 Crore in 2019-20, but due to slow progress of works only Rs 43.01 Crore was released, out of which the State could only spend Rs 26.35 Crore, leaving an unspent balance of Rs 17.46 Crore.