Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday proposed Rs 60,000 crore for the Jal Jeevan Mission targeting to provide potable water to the remaining 3.8 crore households by 2022-23.

“Current coverage of Har Ghar, Nal Se Jal is 8.7 crores. Of this 5.5 crore households were provided tap water in the last 2 years itself. Allocation of ` 60,000 crore has been made with an aim to cover 3.8 crore households in 2022-23,” the Union Minister said in her Budget speech.

The Jal Jeevan Mission was launched in August 2019 to provide safe drinking water to all rural households by 2024, and since its inception, more than 5.5 crore households have been provided with tap water supply benefitting 19 crore rural families or 90 crores rural population.

The water scheme was launched following a report by the government think tank NITI Aayog that said 600 million Indians faced high to extreme water stress and about two lakh people died every year due to inadequate access to safe water.

The report projected the country’s water demand to be twice the available supply by 2030, implying severe scarcity for hundreds of millions of people and an eventual loss in the country’s GDP.

Under the JJM scheme, six States have already achieved the coveted status of 100 percent of households with tap water supply, namely Goa, Telangana, A & N Islands, Puducherry, Dadra, and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu and Haryana. Besides this, 83 districts, 1016 blocks, 62,749 panchayats, and 1,28,893 villages have also achieved 100 percent households with tap water supply status as of January 2022.

In the 2020-21 budget only Rs 17,023 crore were allocated, which has almost increased three times this year to more than Rs 60,000 crore. The Jal Jeevan Mission also involves the development of piped water supply infrastructure, reliable supply sources, and treatment plants.

Further to promote irrigation projects, the Union Finance Minister also proposed Rs 44,605 crore for the prestigious river linking Ken-Betwa project that would also provide drinking water to more than 63 lakh people.

She also proposed linking five rivers including Damanganga-Pinja, Krishna Godavari, Krishna-Pennar, Pennar-Cauvery, Par Tapi- Narmada.

“The implementation of the Ken-Betwa link project at an estimated cost of Rs 44,605 crores will be taken up. This is aimed at providing irrigation to 9.0 lakh hectares of farmers’ land, drinking water supply to 62 lakh people, 103 megawatts of hydro, 27 megawatts of solar power, allocations of Rs 4,300 crore in the revised estimates of 21-22 and Rs 1,400 crore in 22-23 have been made for this project,” she said in her Budget speech.