57,400 schemes to provide drinking water for rural areas

In India, there are several areas with water problems. Many states faced drought recently. There are many rural areas which still have severe water problems. Villagers have to travel several kilometers just to get a five liters of clean drinking water. In order to fight this problem, the government has launched various schemes.

The government has already launched more than 57,400 schemes in different states to provide drinking water to the rural population. In order to start these schemes successfully, the government has spent more than Rs 4,300 crore in 2015-16. The government announced this statistic recently.

Drinking Water and Sanitation Minister Narendra Singh Tomar announced to Lok Sabha that Rs 4,373 crore was allocated to states under the National Rural Drinking Water Programme in 2015-16. Out of that money, Rs 4,369.55 crore has been utilised.

He also cited data and said that there are 57,489 ongoing schemes in different states to provide drinking water to the rural population as of August 8. During the question hour, he said that Jammu & Kashmir alone has 1,838 ongoing rural drinking water supply schemes.

Tomar said that drinking water and sanitation is a state problem. He added that said the Centre’ should provide technical and financial support to the states and that it is the duty of the center to monitor such programmes.

Regarding Swachh Bharat Mission-Gramin (SBM-G), he said the programme aims at achieving Swachh Bharat by October 2, 2019.

According to Tomar, a budget of Rs 6,525 crore was allocated for SBM-G in 2015-2016. Out of it, Rs 6,524.52 crore has been utilized.

Talking about progress, he said that since the launch of SBM-G on October 2, 2014, 212.98 lakh toilets have been constructed as of August 8. As of now, 17 districts, 232 blocks, 32,395 gram panchayats and 72,727 villages have been declared Open Defecation Free.

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