‘Only 3% households drink piped water’

The survey that received over 26,000 responses at a pan-India level shows that supply of piped water to households has increased to 44% this year from 35% last year because of more community involvement at the district and panchayat level and as more quality testing is being conducted under the Jal Jeevan Mission.

To provide safe and adequate drinking water through individual household tap connections by 2024 to all households in rural India, the department of drinking water and sanitation of the Jal Shakti ministry launched the Har Ghar Jal Mission in 2019.

Under the scheme, around 115 million rural households out of a total 194 million have a tap connection installed, according to the Jal Shakti ministry. In 2019, 32.3 million households had tap water connections.

The rise in installations is due to the efforts of the mission in partnership with the states and union territories, widening the coverage to over 50% from 17%. “But is tap water indeed a dependable source of potable water?” asked Sachin Taparia, Founder of LocalCircles.

To provide safe drinking water, the first step should be installing a piped water connection to every home, followed by delivering clean water and over time upgrading the infrastructure to deliver water that is drinkable without filteration, Taparia said.

“In several developed countries, people are able to drink water straight from the tap. As we mark World Water Day 2023, the question before us is whether Indians, too, are able to do the same in cities, towns or villages,” he added.

According to the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), the quality of water produced at filtration plants may be top-class, but its quality declines as the water travels through the trunks to service reservoirs.

The gradual deterioration in the quality of water is because most of the last-mile pipeline networks are not properly maintained. In many cases, especially in the slums, they are laid through open storm-water drains or in close proximity to municipal sewers.

With intermittent water supply, pipes are fully pressurised for only a couple of hours daily. During the long no-supply periods, contaminated surrounding groundwater seeps in as the pressure in the pipes drops to zero. This contaminated water eventually flows out of the taps whenever the municipal water supply service is resumed.

“To ensure delivering portable water and increase the 3% to 20% over the next 5 years, the country will have to define and enforce standards for drinkable water with the local bodies, while providing them the necessary resources to upgrade the infrastructure and maintenance of the water distribution network,” LocalCircles’s Taparia said.

LocalCircles enables citizens and small businesses to escalate issues for policy and enforcement interventions and enables the government to make policies that are citizen and small business centric.