East Jaintia Hills has bagged the second position in the category of ‘Best Performing District’ and ‘Fastest Moving District’ in the country as far as implementation of two flagship programs to cater to the water and sanitation needs of the country – Swachh Bharat Mission – Grameen (SBM-G) and Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM).
East Jaintia Hills made the two achievements in the survey known as Jal Jeevan Survekshan 2023 carried out by the Department of Drinking Water & Sanitation (DDWS) of the Central government.
Jal Jeevan Survekshan 2023 was started by the DDWS as part of Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM), to encourage healthy competition among states and union territories.
The purpose of Jal Jeevan Survekshan 2023 is to incentivise state and district functionaries to strive for better performances and improved water service delivery in rural areas.
The districts are categorised under five heads based on the proportion of households with functional tap connection reported on JJM-IMIS as on October 1, 2022.
The category for household coverage is Aspirants (0 to less than 25 per cent), Performers (25 per cent to less than 50 per cent), Achievers (50 per cent to less than 75 per cent), High Achievers (75 per cent to less than 100 per cent) and Front Runners (100 per cent).
The states and union territories will be felicitated monthly, quarterly and annually based on their performance. For the first time, monthly awards were announced on November 21 by DDWS Secretary Vini Mahajan.
The Department of Drinking Water & Sanitation (DDWS) runs two flagship programs to cater to the water and sanitation needs of the country – Swachh Bharat Mission- Grameen (SBM-G) and Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM).
While SBM(G) aims to make rural India ODF plus by providing complete sanitation, JJM aims to supply every household with quality tap water supply.
One of the monitoring and evaluation mechanisms under both SBM (G) and JJM are the assessment surveys – Swachh Survekshan Grameen (SSG) and Jal Jeevan Survekshan (JJS), which rank the states, union territories and their districts based on their performance on SBM (G) and JJM programme components.
JJM was launched to provide clean drinking tap water in every rural household of the country. At the time of launch of the Mission only 3.23 crore rural households (17 per cent) had access to tap water connection. Continuous effort even during disruptions has brought about a welcome change. Today, over 10.56 crore rural households (54.58 per cent) are getting tap water.
Swachh Bharat Mission – Grameen (SBM-G) is now in its Phase II. In its first phase, SBM (G) successfully declared rural India Open Defecation Free (ODF) in 2019, bringing the toilet coverage from 39 per cent in 2014 to 100 per cent in 2019.
In its second phase launched in 2020, SBM (G) aims to make rural India ODF plus by moving from just access to toilets to complete sanitation comprising management of solid and liquid waste. Till date 1.27 lakh villages are ODF plus.
