‘Need to ensure clean water in every household to check spread of diseases’

Lucknow: Due to lack of clean water, many children not only become vulnerable to serious diseases but one fourth of them even lose their lives. In fact, the infant mortality rate due to water-borne diseases in the country is around 25 per cent. This can be reduced if clean water reaches every household under the ambitious Jal Jeevan mission.

These views were expressed by Vini Mahajan, secretary, ministry of drinking water and sanitation, during the two-day national conference of Jal Jeevan mission and Swachh Bharat mission organised in Lucknow on Friday. She lauded states, including UP, for moving rapidly towards the target while overcoming the challenges. Underlining the challenges of the drinking water mission, Mahajan said that achieving the target of providing drinking water to all households was not the real challenge. “The bigger challenge was how to maintain the continuity of providing drinking water and how the participation of people can be ensured,” she said.

She said that govt and the civil society need to make concerted efforts on every front to achieve sustainable water management goals. “We have to commit that we will maintain the quality of the water supplied. To prevent water borne diseases, we have to follow chlorination protocol and it should be ensured. With this we will be able to achieve the expected target,” she noted. Mahajan stressed on the need of running a comprehensive awareness campaign to explain the need for clean drinking water. “We also have to ensure that groundwater keeps getting recharged. Only by doing this we will be able to use our water resources for a longer time,” she said. Director and additional secretary, National Jal Jeevan mission, Chandrabhushan Kumar said that the challenge of clean water has been there since the beginning but Jal Jeevan mission has challenged this challenge itself.

Jitendra Srivastava, mission director and Joint secretary of Swachh Bharat mission (rural), described the Jal Jeevan mission and the Swachh Bharat mission (rural) as schemes complimenting each other.