Uttar Pradesh bags Centre's Jal Jeevan Mission funds' biggest pie

LUCKNOW: A day after the Centre allotted Rs 10,870 crore to Uttar Pradesh under Jal Jeevan Mission (2021-22), the highest allocation to any state so far, the UP government on Sunday said, a comprehensive annual plan would be rolled out to implement the project, which entails tap water connections to all rural households by 2024.
The amount is more than four times the allocation of last fiscal, when Rs 2,571 crore was disbursed to the state and nine times higher than the allocation in 2019-20. The significantly high allocation to UP comes ahead of the high-stakes UP assembly polls and a day after chief minister Yogi Adityanath met PM Narendra Modi, in what was seen as an exercise to hammer out the 2022 poll roadmap.
UP Jal Shakti minister, Mahendra Singh, said the state government was overwhelmed by the Central allocation. “We would work in a planned way. A formal draft plan is expected to be chalked out this month,” he told TOI. He said, the state government was committed to work as per directions of the Centre to meet the target.
Union Jal Shakti minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, during his last meeting with chief minister Yogi Adityanath, had assured assistance to the state under the Jal Jeevan Mission.
In Uttar Pradesh, there are 2.63 crore households in 97,000 villages, of which 30.04 lakh (11.3%) households have tap water supply. Only 5.16 lakh (1.96%) households had tap water supply before rollout of the scheme. In last 21 months, under Jal Jeevan Mission, the state provided tap water supply to 24.89 lakh (9.45%) households. Despite this, at least 2.33 crore households don’t have this facility, officials said.
Last week, the ministry announced Rs 6,998.97 crore to West Bengal, the second highest allocation to a state under the project. Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh have been allocated Rs 3,410 crore and Rs 5,117 crore, respectively. The north-eastern states have been allocated a total of Rs 9,262 crore. Maharashtra has been allocated Rs 7,064.41 crore, while Chhattisgarh got Rs 1,909 crore.