By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 15 Mar: The Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 15 August, 2019, to provide safe and adequate drinking water to all households and enable every rural household in villages to have a Functional Household Tap Connection (FHTC) by 2024. The mission envisaged that each household must have potable water supply amounting at least to 55 lpcd of prescribed quality (as per BIS 10500:2012) on regular and long-term basis through these FHTC. To implement the mission in an appropriate manner, institutional arrangements at various levels of administration and state departments were made that is playing a critical role in its success.
In general, JJM is implemented through institutional mechanism at four levels, namely National Jal Jeevan Mission (NJJM) at national level, State Water and Sanitation Mission (SWSM) at state level, District Water and Sanitation Mission (DWSM) at district level, and Gram Panchayat and its subcommittees (Village Water and Sanitation Committee (VWSC)/ PaaniSamiti/ User Group, etc.) at Panchayat level.
The stakeholder or functionaries managing the water supply services at different levels from Gram Panchayat to State need to be provided with management and leadership training to enabling them to discharge their duties effectively. For the purpose of training at different levels, the National Jal Jeevan Mission has developed partnership for knowledge-building with various institutions of repute that would function as Key Resource Centres (KRCs). These institutions are engaged for capacity building, reorientation of different stakeholders, dissemination of knowledge and information, development of high-quality print and audio-visual content, and documentation of best practices in the drinking water supply sector.
According to Dr Vijay Dhasmana, Vice Chancellor, SRHU, the institution has been working in the Water & Sanitation sector for over two decades and has reached 26 States/UTs. It has facilitated water and sanitation schemes in 550+ villages. He mentioned that the Himalayan Institute Hospital Trust (promoting society of Swami Rama Himalayan University), Swami Ram Nagar, Jollygrant, has been recognised as a Key Resource Centre under the JJM by the Ministry of Jal Shakti, Government of India. GoI has empanelled for capacity building of level -2 (Mid Management Government officials) and the L-3 (functionaries including members of the Village Water sanitation committee (VWSC) and representatives of the Panchayati raj Institutions).
Engineer HP Uniyal mentions the KRC achievements and states that Institute has conducted 55 training programmes and trained 2672 participants, so far. This year, the target is to train 5000+ participants. Mountain areas including J&K and North Eastern States are the priority areas. In this series, HIHT recently conducted 2 training programmes for Engineers of Sikkim. The first program on WASH Services during Disaster and Emergencies organised on 23 to 24 February, 2023, was attended by 32 participants and, the second programme on Issues, Challenges and Solutions for Spring based Water Supply System was attended by 38 participants during 27 February – 1 March, 2023, and held at Gangtok, Sikkim. In Jammu and Kashmir, two training programme of three days, each, were organised between 26 and 30 December, 2022, at Kupwara (69 participants) and Rajouri (96 participants) districts, respectively. The entire training programme was conducted in close coordination with the district authorities. Vikas Kundal, District Development Commisssioner (DDC), Rajouri and DS Dattatreya, DDC, Kupwara, addressed the participants.
All programmes are supported by the National Jal Jeevan Mission.
During the visit of Sikkim officials to HIHT-SRHU, HP Uniyal and Nitesh Kaushik, Nodal Officer, had a meeting with the higher officials of the department, including the Secretary, Project Director – JJM and Director – Panchayati Raj of the Government of Sikkim. They were briefed about the achievements of the institute, especially in the Water and Sanitation sector. It was mutually agreed at primarily level to have a long term association with the state.
Uniyal said that, in the coming financial year, KRC, HIHT, will conduct the training programme for all the Northeast state and also conduct exposure visits for stakeholders who will benefit from the experiences of Uttarakhand in the field of water conservation and its proper management. such as source tapping arrangement – Uttaranchal Koop, Steel Intake Chamber, River Bank Filtration, Solar Pumping, etc. Uniyal also stated that, in the coming year, the ongoing activity will be expended in the area of research and publication. Joint programmes will be organised by KRC- HIHT with the country’s Apex Training Institute /Research Institute/University and Swami Ram Himalayan University will get a new identity in the country by undertaking such activities.
