Centre releases ₹361 crore to Uttarakhand.

Uttarakhand, which is scheduled to go for assembly polls in next four months, has received a Central grant of ₹360.95 crore which will help the State to expedite the implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission.

In last two months alone projects worth ₹714 crore were approved by the State-level scheme sanctioning committee (SLSSC) to connect drinking water in 58,500 homes in 846 villages under the Central scheme. This compared with ₹721.90 crore released in two tranches during entire 2020-21, Union Ministry of Jal Shakti said in a statement.

Uttarakhand plans to become ‘Har Ghar Jal’ State by December, 2022, providing drinking water connection to every home. Less than 9 per cent of 15.18 lakh rural households had tap water supply in 2019 when the Jal Jeevan Mission was launched. Now after two years, nearly half of these rural households have water connection. All schools and anganwadi centres have been connected with tap water.

At the start of the mission, only 17 per cent of 19.20 crore rural households in the country had tap water supply. Currently, 45.32 per cent of the rural households receive potable water through taps and it includes every household in 1.29 lakh villages in 83 districts.

HBL