The district-level water and sanitation missions have cleared proposals worth ₹3,407.04 crore for adding 13.64 lakh household water connections in rural Kerala under the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) during the current financial year. The district-level missions have approved the detailed engineering reports (DER) for 666 schemes so far, Water Resources Minister K. Krishnankutty said on Saturday.
Kerala’s target for 2020-21 has, in fact, doubled from 10 lakh functional household tap connections to 21.42 lakh connections. This is on account of the fact that Kerala delayed the launching of JJM by a year. Consequently, the revised annual action plan reflects the targets for two years. This year, JJM schemes will be implemented in 791 panchayats.
The State Water and Sanitation Mission (SWSM), which oversees JJM implementation at the State-level, will have its first meeting on August 5 to accord administrative sanction for the approved works. The Union government has, in principle, approved the revised plan for 2020-21 for projects worth ₹6,377 crore submitted by the State, sources in the Kerala Water Authority said. Of this, ₹2,869.5 crore is Central assistance, ₹1,913 crore is the State’s share, while ₹956.5 crore is panchayat share and ₹637.7 crore accounts for beneficiary contribution. The operational guidelines for JJM expects panchayats and beneficiaries to contribute 15% and 10% respectively towards the cost.
Target set
JJM envisages water connections to all rural households by 2024 at the national level. In Kerala, only 17.5 lakh out of the 67 lakh rural households have tap connections at present.
