81 per cent J&K households have tap water connection: MoS Jal Shakti

New Delhi, Dec 4: The Union Government on Thursday informed the Lok Sabha that Jammu & Kashmir has achieved 81.22% coverage of rural households with tap water supply under the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM).
The figures were shared in a written reply by Minister of State for Jal Shakti, V. Somanna.
As per data, J&K has a total of 19.26 lakh rural households, of which 5.75 lakh (29.89%) had tap water connections at the launch of JJM in August 2019. Since then, an additional 9.88 lakh households (51.33%) have been provided with tap water supply, taking the total to 15.64 lakh households.
The reply stated that while significant progress has been made, nearly 3.62 lakh rural households in the UT are still awaiting tap water connectivity, with works at various stages of implementation as part of the saturation plan.
Nationally, over 12.52 crore households have been connected since 2019, raising overall rural tap water coverage to over 81%. The Ministry also shared findings from an independent functionality assessment, noting that 76% of tap water connections surveyed across the country were fully functional in terms of quantity, quality, and regularity.
The Government said that measures including geo-tagging of assets, Aadhaar-linked monitoring, village/district dashboards, and third-party inspections have been adopted to strengthen implementation and address gaps under the Mission. (KNO)