SHILLONG, March 31: The Ministry of Jal Shakti has sanctioned an additional grant-in-aid of Rs 299.24 crore to Meghalaya for the third straight year for providing functional household tap connections (FHTCs) under the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM).
“Meghalaya did it again!! 3rd consecutive year Meghalaya got bonus funds under JJM. Congrats to the entire team and thank you to @gssjodhpur @PMOIndia,” Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma tweeted, sharing the letter from the Ministry.
“The sanction of the President of India is hereby conveyed to the release of Rs 299.24 crore to implement Jal Jeevan Mission to provide functional household tap connections to every rural household to the Government of Meghalaya towards additional funds during the year 2022-23,” the letter read.
The guidelines clearly mentioned that the fund is to be utilized to implement JJM for providing functional household tap convection which will be monitored against the month-wise/quarter-wise financial plan and commensurate physical progress in terms of FHTCs and related Support & WQMS activities as per the Annual Action Plan of JJM for 2022-23 to achieve the annual target of FHTC.
The letter stressed, “Priority be given to the schemes covering quality-affected habitations, SAGY villages, villages in drought prone/desert areas, SC/ST dominated villages, villages in Aspirational districts and districts affected with JE/AES as per the Annual Action Plan of the state for 2022-23”.
“The state is to ensure release/transfer of the matching state share within 15 days of receipt of GoI share to the ESCROW account of implementing agency of Jal Jeevan Mission. Further, the next release to the accounts shall not be made without ensuring release of state share for the previous release,” it stated.
The letter further stated, “The above release also includes 25% Flexi Fund in each component which the state government may utilize complying with instructions/guidelines circulated by Ministry of Finance vide their O.M. No. 55(5)/PF 11/2011 dated 6.9.2016. The expenditure in each category (SCC, STC and Non-SCC-STC) has to be shown separately in the UCs of the current year.”
“Fund under SCC/STC is being released to provide safe drinking water through PHTCs to villages dominated by SC/ST population by execution/completion of piped water supply schemes,” the letter further read.
Recently, Sangma said the central government assured to allocate Rs 3,700 crore for 2023-24 for the implementation of JJM in Meghalaya. He said Meghalaya has been among the top performers in JJM.
He had stated that the number of households with tap water connections has increased from 4,550 in 2019 to 3 lakh. He said the government has set an ambitious target of providing tap water connections to all 6.3 lakh households by April 2024.
