India achieved a record of 3.15 crore tap water connections in 2023, at a pace of installing exactly ‘one tap per second’, government figures show. Uttar Pradesh alone contributed 40% of these new connections, and the state achieved its full financial year target in just nine months.
The pace shown by the ‘Har Ghar Jal’ programme in 2023 was a significant uptick from 2022 when 2.08 crore tap water connections were achieved. 2023, hence, saw an almost 51% increase, showing that the mission could be on track to achieve 100% tap water saturation by the end of 2024 if the pace is upped further. About five crore households remain to be covered by tap water connections in the country as on date, data shows.
“Foremost contribution of Functional Household Tap Connections (FHTCs) have been recorded in Uttar Pradesh with the installation of more than 1.27 crore FHTCs averaging almost 35,000 tap connections daily. Thus, more than 2 in every 5 FHTCs reported in the country in 2023 are in Uttar Pradesh. It is encouraging to note that Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have already achieved the respective Annual Action Plans (2023-24),” says a government report.
The Challenges
The states of West Bengal, Jharkhand and Rajasthan remain the big challenges for the completion of the mission. All three states have less than 50% coverage of tap water connections so far, though the country-wide average has reached almost 74%. West Bengal is the most laggard state with only 42% coverage and over one crore households without a tap water connection. West Bengal added only 20 lakh tap water connections in 2023, compared to 1.27 crore in UP.
The latest data shows that of the five crore households left to be covered by a tap water connection, 1.9 crore are in the three states of West Bengal, Rajasthan and Jharkhand.
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