10 crore rural households connected to piped water facility: PM Modi

The coastal state of Goa has a population of about 15 lakh.

The Har Ghar Jal Utsav under the Jal Jeevan Mission was held in Panaji and attended by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat. Sawant said this is a “matter of pride for the people of Goa”, and congratulated various government departments that “worked continuously through the two years of Covid”.

“Goa has been taking the lead in various missions of the country,” the Prime Minister said.

He said that in the past eight years his government had done several times the work that took place in the preceding 70 years.

“There were about 16 crore rural households in the country who had to depend on outside sources for water. We could not have left such a large population of the village fighting for this basic need. That is why three years ago I announced from the Red Fort that every house would get piped water. Rs 3.60 lakh crore are being spent on this campaign. Despite the interruptions caused by the biggest epidemic of 100 years, the pace of this campaign did not slow down, he said. “The result of this continuous effort is that in just three years, the country has done more than double the work done in seven decades. This is an example of the same human-centred development, which I talked about this time from the Red Fort.”

“It is true that to form a government, one does not have to work that hard as one has to work to build a country. We have all chosen to work for nation building. That is why we are working on the challenges of the present and the future. Those who do not care about the country, are not bothered about spoiling the present or future of the country. Such people can definitely talk big, but can never work with a big vision for water.”

The Prime Minister said that women, who earlier suffered silently on account of water-related problems, have been among the main beneficiaries of the programme as piped water connections have saved their time and families have been protected from diseases caused by contaminated water.

He said that the Jal Jeevan Mission rests on four pillars – people’s participation, stakeholder participation, political will and optimum utilisation of resources. “Local people and Gram Sabhas and other institutions of local governance have been given an unprecedented role in the campaign. Local women are trained for water testing and are members of ‘Paani Samitis’,” Modi said.