The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday accorded approval for continuation and restructuring of National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) to make it outcome-based, competitive and better monitored with increased focus on sustainability (functionality) of schemes to ensure good quality service delivery to the rural population.
A sum of Rs 23,050 crore has been approved for the programme for the 14th Finance Commission (FFC) period 2017-18 to 2019-20, as per a statement here.
"The programme will cover all the rural population across the country. The restructuring will make the programme flexible, result-oriented, competitive, and will enable the Ministry towards to reach the goal of increasing coverage of sustainable piped water supply," it added.
A new sub-programme under NRDWP viz. National Water Quality Sub-Mission (NWQSM) which has been started by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation in February 2017 will address the urgent need for providing clean drinking water in about 28000 Arsenic and Fluoride affected habitations (already identified). As per estimates, about Rs 12,500 crore as Central share will be required over 4 years i.e. up to March, 2021. This is being funded from the allocation under NRDWP, the statement added.
As per the Government data, about 77 per cent of rural habitations in India have achieved a fully covered (FC) status (40 litres per capita per day) and 56 per cent of the rural population have access to tap water through public stand posts within which 16.7 per cent have household connections.