Manzoor-ul-Hassan
Srinagar, Aug 13: Nearly 4,000 applications seeking fresh water connections for domestic consumers and commercial establishments in Jammu and Kashmir are awaiting approval by the Jal Shakti Department, according to official data.
Almost 60 percent of these applicants are from the Jammu Division, while 40 percent are from Kashmir, according to the data.
The Jammu district alone has over 860 applications for household water connections pending, while Srinagar has 597 applications.
The ‘Apply for Obtaining Water Connection’ for residential and commercial buildings is a primary service provided by the J&K government under its ‘Single Window System (SWS)’ initiative. The program has had a dedicated portal for all such services since 2022 and has integrated all major departments with it.
Under the Public Services Guarantee Act (PSGA) of 2011, the new domestic water connection should take 15 days, and commercial has a 30-day maximum limit. However, the maximum time the Jal Shakti Department takes to complete the process has been more than 500 days in some cases.
Since 2022, the department received 15,351 applications seeking new water connections under various schemes through SWS, with 7,309 applications approved and 1,049 applications rejected.
The delay in obtaining the water connection highlights the poor implementation of various prestigious schemes like the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) and the ‘Har Ghar Nal Se Jal (water in every household) initiative, per official sources.
Chief Engineer, Jal Shakti, Kashmir, Vivek Kohli, admitted that there was a pendency of applications with the department. However, he said most of these applications were received in 2024.
“At least 1,217 applications are currently under process, including 1,042 domestic and 75 commercial. Most of the applications are from 2024 and will be cleared soon by the concerned officials,” he said.
Kohli stated that the Kashmir division received a total of 8,365 applications for new water connections, 5,255 of which were granted and 286 refused.
Notably, Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo recently took a periodical review of the JJM, focussing on providing functional tap water connections (FHTCs) to all the households in the Union territory.
During this meeting, Dulloo asked concerned officers to take steps to clear pending applications at the earliest and complete ‘Har Ghar Nal se Jal’ certification of villages.
He also directed the Jal Shakti Department to work out a reasonable operations and maintenance plan for running the water supply schemes smoothly.
On the occasion, the Additional Chief Secretary (ACS) of the department, Shaleen Kabra, presented the work done and achievements.
Currently, at least 894 schemes have achieved progress of 76–99% and 922 (51–75%), he added.
