Piped Water Connection by 2024 | 18 Jun 2019

The Prime Minister has recently said that the government will provide piped water to every household in the next five years i.e. by 2024.

This is the 12^th time that India has set a deadline to take water at the household-level.

It would be an enormous exercise:
- Some 8.43 million households, currently without drinking water facilities, have to be connected to piped water in the next five years.
- Some 4,620 households would have to be added to the network every day for the next five years, at the rate of 40 litres per day.

India remains haunted by what is known as the “slippage” problem. It means villages/habitations covered with safe drinking water facilities slip back to 'not-covered' status due to various reasons that include drying up of the source or collapse of the facilities due to non-maintenances.
- Currently, India is facing a water stressed situation, two major reasons being, drying reservoirs and dipping groundwater levels.
- It is to be seen from where the piped water supply scheme would draw water as currently the country is going through a water crisis situation.
The quality of water sources — both surface and ground sources — is hardly suited to drinking. According to NITI Aayog, nearly 70 per cent of all of the country’s fresh water sources are contaminated.
Water, being a state subject, the scope of the centre's intervention is therefore limited.

There is an urgent need to create awareness among the people for the conservation of water.
The Jal Shakti Ministry needs to work with states to ensure piped water to every household in the country.
The sources as well as the quality of water in the country needs to be maintained on an urgent basis.