AP districts top Jal Jeevan Mission

VIJAYAWADA: The YSR Kadapa and Visakhapatnam districts have won top ranks at national-level in implementation of the Jal Jeevan Mission – vis-a-vis the ‘best performing’ and ‘fastest moving’ categories.

Chief Secretary to the AP government, K.S. Jawahar Reddy, said the two districts provided water taps to the houses in the fastest mode. “The  drinking water and sanitation department runs two major programmes to meet the drinking water and sanitation needs of the country – namely, the Swachh Bharat Mission- Gramin (SBM-G) and the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJEM) SBM-G, which aims to make rural India ODF Plus.

The aim of ODF Plus is to provide complete sanitation while JJEM aims to provide quality tap water supply to every household,” he said.

The Chief Secretary explained that one of the monitoring and evaluation mechanisms is assessment surveys namely Swachh Survekshan Gramin (SSG) and Jal Jeevan Sarvekshan (JJS), which ranked states, Union Territories and their districts based on their performance in SBM.

As part of implementation of the National Jal Jeevan Mission scheme designed by the central government with the aim of providing tap water to every household in the rural areas by 2024, the YSR Kadapa and Visakhapatnam districts have won ranks in the two categories of JJS, 2023.

From October 1 last year to March 31, 2023, the YSR Kadapa district stood 1/20 by providing tap connections to 75 to 100 per cent of the households, village to village.

Visakhapatnam district ranked 1/21 in the coverage of household tap connections, with a success rate of between 50 to 75 per cent in implementation, in the category of aspirational districts.

Similarly, in the ‘achievers’ category, Visakhapatnam district ranked 3/168 in the coverage of household taps between 50 to 75 per cent.

Jal Jeevan Mission additional secretary Vikas Sheel has stated in a letter to AP that these half-yearly ranks would contribute towards finalising the annual ‘national best’ ranks.