Union jal shakti minister writes to Odisha CM on slow progress of Jal Jeevan Mission

BHUBANESWAR: Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Union minister of jal shakti, has expressed concern over the slow progress of Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) in Odisha. He wrote a letter to chief minister Naveen Patnaik and emphasized the importance of JJM and urged him for expeditious implementation of the programme in the state.
The Union minister in the letter committed that the Centre will provide all support to the state in execution of JJM, which aims to improve the lives of rural people by providing safe drinking water to every rural household through functional household tap connections (FHTCs) by 2024.
He highlighted the target lapses and insufficient utilisation of funds by the state government. “In 2019-20, against the target of 15.61 lakh, only 4.37 lakh (27.97 per cent) households were provided with tap connections in the state. This lag resulted in the low utilization of fund. Odisha was allocated Rs 364.74 crore in 2019-20, out of which the state could only utilise Rs 275.02 crore,” said a government release issued on Friday.
The Union minister has urged Naveen to review the planning and implementation strategy for water supply schemes. “For this mission, the funds are provided to states based on the output in terms of FHTCs provided and the utilization of available Central and matching state share,” said the official sources.
Shekhawat said the fund allocation to Odisha has been increased from Rs 364.74 crore to Rs 812.15 crore in 2020-21. “Along with the unspent balance of Rs 90 crore, this year central allocation of Rs 812 crore and with the matching state share, Odisha will have Rs 1,805 crore for implementation of JJM in 2020-21,” said the letter.
The Union minister was hopeful that the state will provide state matching share along with the Central fund on timely basis to implement the programme in order to achieve the target of 100 per cent tap connection in rural areas.
He requested the state for better planning and time bound delivery with focus on retrofitting and augmentation of existing water supply systems in 21,516 villages, so that poor and marginalised people in these villages get tap connections immediately. He intends to discuss the planning and implementation of the mission with Naveen through video conferencing soon.
Odisha has been allocated Rs 2,258 crore in 2020-21 as 15th Finance Commission Grants to PRIs and 50 per cent of this amount will be utilized for water supply and sanitation.