JJMJaipur: Rajasthan is set to end free drinking water supply under Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) projects after six years, with the state govt preparing to roll out an Operations and Maintenance (O&M) policy that will make all beneficiaries pay monthly charges.“We have forwarded the final draft of a policy to this effect to the state govt. It is presently awaiting final approval from the cabinet,” an official in the public health engineering department (PHED) said.JJM is a flagship central govt scheme implemented in partnership with state govts to provide piped tap water to every rural household.Under the proposed new policy, rural households with JJM water supply will pay between Rs 100 and Rs 125 monthly per connection. The move is aimed at covering the cost of operating and maintaining rural drinking water infrastructure created under the mission.To manage the system at the local level, the govt plans to form cluster committees in every village. Each committee will be headed by the sarpanch and will include at least two PHED engineers to supervise technical work and maintenance. “In total, 41,986 such committees will be formed across the state,” the PHED official said.Rural consumers with piped water connections provided outside the JJM framework were already paying a fee. The new policy, if granted cabinet approval, would mean all rural households with piped water access, under JJM or some other scheme, will have to pay for their connections, an official said.Over 63 lakh JJM connections have been provided across the state so far, he added.The govt’s intention to charge a monthly fee for JJM connections, of which over 63 lakh already exist, will affect vast swathes of the state’s rural population. Hanumangarh, Sriganganagar, Bhilwara, Pali and Didwana-Kuchaman are some of the districts with the highest number of connections under the JJM scheme.
