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. 2024 Nov 21;19(11):e0312144.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0312144. eCollection 2024.

Rural drinking water supply program and societal development: Evidence from the early implementation phase of India's Jal Jeevan Mission

Abinash Singh  1 , Gopal Naik  2
Affiliations

Rural drinking water supply program and societal development: Evidence from the early implementation phase of India's Jal Jeevan Mission

Abinash Singh et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

With a community-centric approach to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 6.1, the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) launched in 2019, aims to improve the living standard of rural communities by addressing various issues related to rural drinking water supply system. The literature evaluating rural water supply programs in India is sparse. Emphasizing the large-scale implementation of the mission, we utilized sample survey data and multiple linear regression models to investigate whether or not access to household water tap connections has succeeded in reducing the burden of drinking water collection on women and female children in rural regions. Overall, our findings suggest moderate attainment of JJM even at a very early stage, whereas the positive achievements are reflected in terms of reducing the burden of water collection on women. Further, a higher probability of wealth-related inequity favoring advantaged groups was found in the coverage of household water tap connections both in pre- and initial-JJM period. Our study suggests ground-level strengthening of the rural drinking water supply system for achieving an equitable and sustainable outreach of the program across the country.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Percentage of rural households having tap water connection, 2019 and 2024.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Causal mechanism of Jal Jeevan Mission and illustration of selected indicators.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Proportion of rural households having piped drinking water facilities in their household premises, by Indian states, 2015–16 and 2019–21.
Fig 4
Fig 4. Proportion of households in which adult women and female children fetched drinking water from distant sources, by Indian states, 2015–16 and 2019–21.
Fig 5
Fig 5. Change in proportion of households having HTC and access to drinking water, by Indian states, 2015–16 and 2019–21.
Fig 6
Fig 6. Effect of household tap connections on water collection by women and female children, time taken to collect water- district-level estimates from multiple regression analysis.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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References

    1. Government of India. Dashboard- Jal Jeevan Mission ‐ Har Ghar Jal 2023 [Available from: https://ejalshakti.gov.in/jjmreport/JJMIndia.aspx.
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    1. Government of India. Operational Guidelines for the implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission: Har Ghar Jal. Ministry of Jal Shakti, Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, National Jal Jeevan Mission; 2019.
    1. Ummalla M, Samal A, Zakari A, Lingamurthy S. The effect of sanitation and safe drinking water on child mortality and life expectancy: Evidence from a global sample of 100 countries. Australian Economic Papers. 2022;61(4):778–97.

Grants and funding

The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.