Maharashtra to spend Rs 8,920 crore to revise 18k schemes under Jal Jeevan Mission

The Jal Jeevan Mission was envisioned to provide safe and adequate drinking water through individual household tap connections to all households in rural India by 2024. Around 51,560 schemes are currently underway in the state to implement the mission.

Among the schemes to be revised, 16,881 cost up to Rs 1 crore, which will be sanctioned by the Water Supply department, while the remaining 1,951 cost above Rs 1 crore and are to be greenlighted by the Finance department.

Among the reasons that led to the revision in the schemes include exclusion of some hamlets or villages in the earlier design, failure to draw water from the intended source, inability to get land for water tank despite resolution passed by villages, and change in water tank location leading to change in design. An increase of 6 per cent in Goods and Services Tax (GST) for the works – now it is 18 percent – also had to be factored in.

Out of the 18,832 schemes to be revised, 7,184 are those in which GST rate changes will be applied and some faced cost escalation. It will add a burden of Rs 639 crore which will be equally borne by the state and the Centre. The other 11,648 schemes faced the aforementioned technical reasons, which will cost the state exchequer Rs 8,601 crore.

As per government data, while 27,292 villages in the state have received 100 per cent water supply, the work is in progress in 12,777 villages, and the water supply work is yet to start in 228 villages.

Maharashtra has so far spent around Rs 31,374 crore for the Jal Jeevan Mission. As per the government’s claim, tap connections have now increased from 33 per cent to 88.36 per cent with the completion of 15,537 schemes.

The Expenditure Finance Committee’s plan for the year 2019-20 – when the mission was launched – was to release Rs 3,60,648 crore nationally for the works, while Maharashtra’s plan was to release Rs 20,627 crore. It has now grown to Rs 8,38,385 at the national level and Rs 62,174 crore (rise of 201%) for the state.