Underscoring deep‐seated concerns around “irregularities” plaguing its flagship Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM), the Government of India has now directed all states to submit detailed reports of action taken against erring officials, contractors, and inspection agencies.
The directive was issued by the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation (DDWS), which is responsible for oversight of JJM under the Ministry of Jal Shakti.
This move follows a “top‐level” review meeting in which officials discussed extending JJM’s deadline from 2024 to 2028—an extension announced in the Union Budget but yet to be cleared by the Cabinet.
Sources say that the extension is contingent on states demonstrating credible accountability mechanisms, meaning that how state‐level agencies have acted against miscreants will determine whether the scheme’s future is approved.
What the Government is Now Asking
In the directive dated 10 October 2025, states and Union Territories were asked to compile and submit by 20 October the following:
Details of action taken against Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) officials: suspensions, removals, or FIRs linked to poor quality work or financial misdealings.
- Status reports on contractors and Third Party Inspection Agencies (TPIAs): penalties imposed, number blacklisted, FIRs filed, amounts recovered.
- Separate one‐page summaries for each case in which an FIR has been registered.
- Number of complaints regarding financial irregularities or substandard work, whether raised publicly, through grievance portals, or by legislators.
- A “ground truthing” review of scheme‐data: checking for double‐entries, incorrect entries, non‐implementation, over‐design, delays, and other discrepancies, along with their financial impact.
- A recovery plan for any identified financial loss to the exchequer.
Key Figures & Earlier Findings
Launched in August 2019 with the ambitious goal of providing every rural household in India with a tap connection, JJM initially targeted all 17.87 crore rural households, of which roughly 14.6 crore lacked such connections at the time of launch.
An allocation of ₹3.60 lakh crore was made—₹2.08 lakh crore from the Center and ₹1.52 lakh crore from states.
To date:
- 6.41 lakh water‐supply schemes costing ₹8.29 lakh crore have been approved to serve 12.74 crore households.
- Expenditure so far stands at around ₹3.91 lakh crore, as per the JJM dashboard.
- According to the Ministry’s July 2025 update, more than 15.67 crore of an estimated 19.36 crore rural households (≈80.94 %) reportedly have tap connections—but serious challenges remain in source sustainability, quality assurance, and implementation.
Notably, a previous investigation found that changes in the mission’s guidelines in 2021 removed a key financial‐expenditure check, causing cost escalations — an additional ₹16,839 crore across 14,586 schemes (≈14.58 % above estimates) were highlighted.
What’s New & Urgent
- The directive follows the deployment of over 100 nodal‐officer inspection teams for ground evaluation of JJM works across states, a major scale‐up of oversight.
- Some states, such as West Bengal, face specific scrutiny: with coverage reportedly at only ~56.38 % in that state, the Center has asked for names of penalized contractors and officials, sparking claims of political motivation by state leaders.
- Implementation hurdles such as source reliability, geo‐genic contaminants, rugged terrains, and rising costs of raw materials continue to be cited by states.
What Lies Ahead
The Government’s intensified demand for transparency and accountability signals a pivot: JJM’s future—its extended timeline and funding—will be heavily contingent on states’ responses to irregularities and the robustness of corrective action.
Still, the broader challenge remains: are rural households truly receiving functional, safe drinking‐water connections, and is the data reflecting this reality?
A Parliamentary panel has recently flagged concerns over data authenticity and the absence of an annual evaluation of tap‐water functionality in 2023.
Unless these red flags are addressed, the very foundation of India’s “Har Ghar Jal” promise risks being undermined, and the extension of the mission to 2028 may be merely symbolic rather than substantive.
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