The Jal Shakti Ministry with the allocation of Rs 86,189 crore in the Union Budget 2022-23, saw an increase of 24 per cent from Rs 69,052 crore given in 2021-22.
In the Union Budget, presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday, the Drinking Water and Sanitation Department under the ministry has been allocated Rs 67,221 crore, while 18,967.88 crore has been earmarked for the Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation.
Launched in 2019, the Jal Jeevan Mission, a flagship programme of the Modi government, aims to provide tap water connections to rural households by 2024. So far, tap water connections have been given to 8.7 crore rural households. In 2021-22, Rs 50,000 crore was allocated for the Jal Jeevan Mission.
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Sitharaman said, Rs 60,000 crore has been allocated to provide tap water connections to 3.8 crore households in 2022-23 under the Jal Jeevan Mission.
The fund allocation to centrally-sponsored schemes was increased from 5,688.49 crore to 12,605.12 crore. An amount of Rs 1,400 crore has been set aside for the project of interlinking of rivers.
The finance minister, in her budget speech, said the implementation of Ken-Betwa rivers linking at an estimated cost of Rs 44,605 crore will be taken up and the draft detailed project report of five river links, namely Damanganga-Pinjal, Par-Tapi-Narmada, Godavari-Krishna, Krishna-Pennar, and Pennar-Cauvery have been finalized.
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The total allocation under Water Resources Management that includes schemes like Atal Bhujal Yojna and Ground Water Management and Regulation, also increased from Rs 729 crore in 2021-22 to Rs 2,112 crore in 2022-23.
( With PTI Inputs)
