Hyderabad: The Bharatiya Janata Party has once again been caught lying, this time with the Centre’s Jal Jeevan Mission blowing the cover off the saffron party’s attempts to malign Telangana.BJP leaders including union Home Minister Amit Shah have repeatedly been alleging that Telangana failed to ensure drinking water to all households in the State, but the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) has acknowledged the State’s number one position in the country with 100 per cent household drinking water connections. As per the latest data published on the JJM website dashboard as on October 9, the BRS government has successfully provided tap water connections to 5,398,219 households in Telangana, achieving cent percent drinking water connections. In contrast, the national average stands at 69.2 percent, considering a total of 19,23,63,440 households across the country.States that have also achieved the goal of tap water connections include Haryana, Gujarat, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Goa, along with union territories like Puducherry, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Dadra, Nagar Haveli, Daman, and Diu. Notably, several BJP-ruled states, such as Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Assam and Tripura, have recorded fewer drinking water connections to households than the national average.What makes Telangana’s achievement even more impressive is that it received the lowest financial assistance from the Centre to any State under JJM. The State government received only Rs.188.23 crore from the Centre since 2019-20, despite the Centre’s claim of allocating Rs.3,981.98 crore to Telangana under the programme. The funds were not released despite repeated requests from the State government.It may be noted that the Jal Jeevan Mission itself was inspired by Telangana’s flagship Mission Bhagiratha scheme, launched in 2016. The initiative was aimed to provide 100 litres per capita per day (LPCD) of treated and piped water to every rural household, 135 LPCD to municipalities, and 150 LPCD to municipal corporations.Telangana invested a substantial Rs.43,791 crore in providing tap water connections under the programme, securing approximately Rs.32,652 crore through borrowings from NABARD and a consortium of banks, led by the then Andhra Bank (now union Bank of India). The loan repayment for the scheme has also been diligently carried out.Despite a recommendation from NITI Aayog for providing financial assistance of Rs.19,205 crore to the Mission Bhagiratha scheme, the Centre has not responded, leaving the State government to rely entirely on internal and external resources without any central assistance.Taking to social media on Thursday, BRS working president and Municipal Administration Minister KT Rama Rao said Telangana was the first state in independent India to launch a project called ‘Mission Bhagiratha,’ aiming to provide potable water connections to every home. He added, “Inspired by Telangana’s success, the Government of India launched ‘Har Ghar Jal’ a few years later. What #Telangana does today, the rest of India follows tomorrow.”This achievement only reiterates Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao’s claim that Telangana leads the country in multiple fields. Amit Shah, while ridiculing the Chief Minister’s statement, recently alleged that under the BRS, Telangana ranked first in unemployment and lack of drinking water access. However, the JJM website has proved that the Home Minister was lying.
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