The National Rural Drinking Water Program is a scheme promoted by the Centre, which ensures access to clean and potable drinking water for all people living in rural India. This also means that every household has access to the cooking water and various other home necessities. The plan was initiated by the UPA government as part of the Bharat Nirman project. The supply was seen as a remarkable initiative to ensure safe drinking water for all rural families via pumps and water supplies. In fact, the picture is paradoxical despite the seeming importance of the program and the reality which had it effectively implemented, it would have made a huge difference in the lives of the rural population.
There is no safe drinking water available to more than 163 million Indians; roughly 78% of rural Indians living in 1.7 million have access to the basic water requirements. It is equally ironic that the government has not benefited from the initiative, despite spending more than Rs 89,956 Crore on the project too far. The government’s audit report issued in August 2018 indicated that the scheme failed even to supply two seals of safe drinking water per day per person, half the total objective set. The report says that due to poor implementation and management, the initiative was unsuccessful. The water table in most regions of India decreases, the level below which the soil is saturated by water. In groundwater, minerals are present such as fluoride, arsenic, mercury, and uranium. This is when groundwater accounts for 80% of the Indian potable water and over two-thirds of water requirements.
Water crisis overall is being felt equally in both the rural and urban areas of India with groundwater being either polluted or channeled into dams and reservoirs, reaching its saturation points and other natural resources. The water demands of the growing population of the country have grown increasingly difficult to meet. Without collective cooperation from the state and people, there can be no way ahead to find a solution to this always rising problem; it is a communal civic responsibility to take care of water consumption and wastage.