Nearly 41% households in India have piped water supply

Some 32.3 million of 189.3 million rural households (17 per cent) had tap water supply when the Jal Jeevan Mission scheme was announced August 15, 2019, Prahlad Singh Patel, Union minister of state for Jal Shakti told the Rajya Sabha July 19, 2021. 

Since then, more than 44.8 million rural households had been provided tap water connections till date, he added. As of July 13, more than 77.2 million (40.77 per cent) households had tap water supply in their homes, Patel said.

Water demand and supply

No specific survey had been carried out to measure the total demand and the existing supply of water in big cities of the country, Bishweswar Tudu, Union minister of state for Jal Shakti and tribal affairs told the Rajya Sabha.

However, the study Reassessment of Water Availability in India using Space Inputs had been carried out by the Central Water Commission in 2019, he added. The average annual water resources of the 20 river basins of India had been assessed as 1,999.20 billion cubic metres (BCM) according to the study.

The study had also shown that eight basins (Brahmaputra, Godavari, Brahamani and Baitarni, Mahanadi, Narmada, Tapi, west-flowing Rivers from Tadri to Kanyakumari and minor rivers draining into Myanmar and Bangladesh) would have per capita utilisable water more than the projected per capita water use in the year 2050.

Green tax 

The Government of India had not notified a green tax on older vehicles, Nitin Gadkari, Union minister of road transport and highways told the Rajya Sabha. However, the governments of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, etc had imposed higher rates of tax on older vehicles, he added.

Solid waste

Some 68 per cent of the municipal solid waste in India was processed according to data provided by the Union ministry of housing and urban affairs, Ashwini Kr Choubey, minister of state in the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change told the Rajya Sabha.

Choubey added that a total financial allocation of Rs 1,41,678 crore over a period of five years from 2021-2026 had been made under Urban Swachh Bharat Mission 2.0, with a focus on complete faecal sludge management and waste water treatment, source segregation of garbage, reduction in single-use plastic, reduction in air pollution by effectively managing waste from construction and demolition activities and bio-remediation of all legacy waste dump sites.

Flood control

The Government of India had launched a Flood Management Programme for providing central assistance to states for various works during the XI Plan, Pankaj Chaudhary, minister of state in the Union ministry of finance told the Lok Sabha.

The works related to river management, anti-erosion, restoration of damage and flood management works, anti-sea erosion, etc. The outlay was Rs 8,000 crore.

Clean energy

India was facing the challenge of high fossil fuel consumption, Rameswar Teli, minister of state in the Union ministry of petroleum and natural gas told the Lok Sabha.

During 2020-21, the consumption of oil-based petroleum products and natural gas was 194.6 million tonnes and 60.6 BCM respectively. The ministry of petroleum and natural gas had identified a basket of strategies including primarily increasing domestic production of oil and gas and promoting use of biofuels / alternative clean fuels like ethanol and bio-diesel to achieve reduction inthe  import of crude oil, he added.