The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime
Minister Shri Narendra Modi has accorded its approval for continuation and restructuring
of National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) to make it outcome-based,
competitive and better monitored with increased focus on sustainability
(functionality) of schemes to ensure good quality service delivery to the rural
population.
A sum of Rs. 23,050 crore has been approved
for the programme for the Fourteenth Finance Commission (FFC) period 2017-18 to
2019-20. The programme will cover all the Rural Population across the country.
The restructuring will make the programme flexible, result-oriented,
competitive, and will enable the Ministry towards to reach the goal of
increasing coverage of sustainable Piped Water Supply.
The details of the decision are as
follows:
1. National
Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) is to be continued co-terminus with the
14th Finance Commission cycle till March 2020.
2. With
the restructuring of the NRDWP, there will be 2% earmarking of funds for
Japanese Encephalitis (JE) /Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) affected areas.
3. A
new Sub-programme under NRDWP viz. National Water Quality Sub-Mission (NWQSM)
which has been started by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation in
February 2017 will address the urgent need for providing clean drinking water
in about 28000 Arsenic & Fluoride affected habitations (already
identified). As per estimates, about Rs. 12,500 crore as Central share will be
required over 4 years i.e. up to March, 2021. This is being funded from the
allocation under NRDWP.
4. Pre-financing
for the agreed schemes, to the extent of half of the second instalment amount,
will be made by the State Governments, which will be reimbursed later on from
the central funding. If the State(s) fails to claim this amount before 30th
November in the financial year, then, these funds will become a part of the
common pool, which will be released to the high performing States, which have
already pre-financed the requisite Government of India share on a first come
first serve basis.
5. Other
half of second instalment of funds will be released to the States based on
functionality status of completed piped water supply schemes, which will be
evaluated through a third party.
6. The
Cabinet has approved Rs. 23,050 crore for the programme for the FFC period
2017-18 to 2019-20.
The NWQSM aims to cover
all rural population in Arsenic/Fluoride affected habitations with clean
drinking water on a sustainable basis by March 2021. States have been given
more flexibility in utilization of NRDWP funds by reducing the number of
components under the programme.
As per the Integrated
Management Information System (IMIS) of the Ministry of Drinking Water and
Sanitation, about 77% of rural habitations in India have achieved a fully
covered (FC) status (40 litres per capita per day) and 56% of the rural
population have access to tap water through public stand posts within which
16.7% have household connections.
Background:
The NRDWP was started in 2009, with a
major emphasis on ensuring sustainability (source) of water availability in
terms of potability, adequacy, convenience, affordability and equity. NRDWP is
a Centrally Sponsored Scheme with 50.50 fund sharing between the Centre and the
States. Over the years, learning from the success achieved and the deficiencies
felt during the implementation of NRDWP, certain modifications are needed in
existing guidelines and procedure of release of funds to the States for making
the programme more outcome-oriented and competitive.
Keeping in view the need to make the
NRDWP more result-oriented, incentivize competition amongst States and focused
on sustainability, a series of discussions were held with States, various
stakeholders / domain experts / international institutions and NITI Aayog, some
amendments in the guidelines of the programme have been introduced. These are
giving more flexibility to the states in utilization of NRDWP funds by reducing
the number of components under the programme. Focus on piped water supply,
increase level of service delivery, thrust on coverage of water quality
affected habitations (National Water Quality Sub-Mission to tackle Arsenic
& Fluoride affected habitations, JE / AES areas), coverage of Open
Defecation Free (ODF) declared villages, SAGY GPs, Ganga GPs, Integrated Action
Plan (IAP) districts, Border Out Posts (BOP) with piped water supply and
Institutional set up for proper O&M of water supply assets etc. have been
introduced.
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AKT/VBA/SH