No water award given to TS: Centre

Hyderabad: The Union Jal Shakti ministry on Saturday denied that the National Jal Jeevan Mission (NJJM) award to the Telangana government was an endorsement of the successful implementation of Mission Bhagiratha scheme in the state.

In a statement, the ministry said that the state Ministers, T Harish Rao and E Dayakar Rao, had made misleading statements. The officials said Telangana was being given an award on October 2 in the category of supplying regular water to rural households. It does not mean that it had endorsed the Mission Bhagiratha scheme.

Referring to reports in the media that the Centre through the National Jal Jeevan Mission had reviewed the Mission Bhagiratha scheme in 320 randomly selected villages across Telangana and all villages were provided uninterrupted, daily quality drinking water through taps, the ministry said that they had not carried out any such survey.

The officials said as per the 'Functionality Assessment 2022' carried out by the department to assess functionality of tap water connection, the Telangana government was supplying less quantity of drinking water to each household.

"As against the JJM (Jal Jeevan Mission) norms of supplying 55 litres per capita per day (LPCD) to each household by maintaining quality as per BIS 10500 standards, the households were getting less than 55 litres of drinking water per capita per day," they said.

They further said functionality assessment data also indicated that out of the total sampled 5 per cent of households, the water quality was found not to be as per JJM norms.

They said the claim of 100 per cent water supply was just a claim of the Ministers but it has not been certified through Gram Panchayats as required under the JJ Mission, they added.