‘Drastic cut in fund hit rural drinking water scheme’

The Centre’s plan to provide clean drinking water in rural areas across the country has been hit due to the slow pace of work being carried out by the Drinking Water and Sanitation Ministry. The Ministry had set a target to lay pipelines in 1.25 lakh villages for 2014-15, but the work has been done only in 70,000 and only 22,000 rural households are getting quality drinking water.

According to sources, discouraged by the poor show, the ministry has reduced its target of supplying clean water to just 26,000 villages for 2015-16, which has just two more months to go. Officials have blamed drastic cut in the Ministry’s budget for the sluggish performance.

If the claims of the government are to be believed, it will take around six more years to provide clean drinking water in 90 per cent of rural areas. Reiterating that the Centre is committed to provide clean water in every rural household, Minister of State for Drinking Water Ram Kripal Yadav said: “The ministry is dedicated to meet the target within the stipulated time, which is 2022, and we are very sure that by that time every village will be connected with a water pipeline.”

“A Permanent Committee, constituted to monitor the progress of the National Rural Drinking Water Programme, has also pointed fingers at the Ministry’s working style and rapped the government for not meeting the target,” a source said. It added in the current fiscal, there is a huge cut in the budgetary allocation for the rural drinking water supply scheme due to which several schemes of the Ministry are in a bad shape.

According to official data, barring nine small states and Union Territories, all other states are affected by contaminated water. Among states, West Bengal has reported the maximum of 11 million people getting water with chemical contamination, followed by Rajasthan where the affected population size is over 99 lakh. Other states include Bihar, Assam, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala. In Punjab, there are reports of uranium being found in drinking water, which is hazardous. In India, where there are 6 lakh villages, 16 per cent of the rural population is not covered by quality water supply.

The ministry has also failed to achieve its target of establishing water testing labs in each state. According the ministry’s report, there are only 25 state-level water testing labs, while 725 labs have been established at district level and 1,610 such labs are there in blocks and tehsils.