Chhattisgarh has achieved 23 percent against a target to provide tap water to 39.59 lakh households by September 2023, Union Minister of State for Food Processing Industries and Jal Shakti Prahlad Singh Patel said here on Tuesday.
The scheme initiated by the Centre in 2019 aims to provide tap water to every rural household by 2024 in the country.
The Minister said for faster implementation of the scheme and to tackle shortage of funds, the Central government had granted the option to state governments to withdraw grants three times more as per targeted allocation.
It can be possible only when the target is achieved and the state government makes its own contribution. Many states have achieved cent percent target in Jal Jeevan Mission like Telangana while Himachal Pradesh has reached 90 percent, he said.
Addressing the media before leaving for Bhopal, the Minister said the funds are retracted when the target is missed and grants lie unutilized. This happened with the PM Awas Scheme in Chhattisgarh, he said.
On the Congress government demanding pending dues, he said Prime Minister Narendra Modi does not discriminate against any state on grounds of allocation of funds.