Aizawl: Mizoram deputy chief minister Tawnluia on Thursday informed the state legislature that the state government is making efforts to provide potable water tap connections to all rural households under the Centre’s Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) by December this year.
Over 700 rural villages will be covered under the ambitious scheme.
Replying to a query from ruling Mizo National Front (MNF) member Ramthanmawia, Tawnluia, who also holds Public Health Engineering portfolio, said that altogether every household in 263 rural villages have so far been provided with potable drinking water through Functional Household Tap Connections (FHTC) under the Centre’s scheme.
He said that 465 more villages are yet to provide household water tap connections.
He said that the government is making efforts to fully implement the scheme by December this year.
JJM was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the occasion of Independence Day in 2019.
The scheme aims at providing potable drinking water to every rural household through Functional Household Tap Connections by 2024.
Tawnluia said, “Although the deadline for JJM is 2024, the Centre asked the state government to complete the implementation by December this year.”
The minister said that he is not sure whether or not they will be able to fully implement the scheme within the time frame set separately for Mizoram.
He also said that altogether 11 villages have so far been provided water using solar water pumps under JJM.
“Step is being taken to provide drinking water to 175 more villages through solar pumps,” Tawnluia said while replying to another question from Vanlaltanpuia of MNF.
He said that 10 million litres of water would be able to be pumped in a day across the state once the installation of all solar water pumps is completed.
The minister also said plastic pipes were used in place of metallic pipes for connections from distribution pipes/lines as allowed by the Central guidelines.