Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala Water Authority has formed a special arm, the Jal Jeevan Mission Cell, with a 10-member panel of senior officials, to provide functional housing tap connection (FHTC) to all rural homes by 2024.
For long the KWA had been claiming that public taps were "loss-making" when in reality the local bodies have been paying Rs 118.17 crore.
Out of those, Rs 78.75 crore is being generated from rural areas. Currently, KWA is also on a mission to influence local bodies citing their savings from eliminating the utility.
The existing National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) will be merged with Jal Jeevan Mission.
The Government Order issued by KWA managing director Dr A. Kowsigan dated October 4 says that the JJM Cell will act as an ad-hoc technical support unit for the implementation of the project till a formal State Water and Sanitation Mission (SWSM) is formed.
The composite cell will function as a cohesive team seamlessly, breaking silos to enable the rollout of Jal Jeevan Mission, says the government order.
The 10 member cell of the Jal Jeevan Mission of KWA comprises S. Santhosh Kumar (deputy chief engineer, monitoring), S. Haris (director, operations, Kerala Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (KRWSA)), M. Premlal, director, HRD, KRWSA, S. Ajitkumar (accounts manager), Gokul Sethuraj (executive engineer, monitoring), John Koshy (executive engineer, planning), S. Shalini (executive engineer, planning), K. S. Praveen (executive engineer, operations), K. R. Prasad (assistant executive engineer, monitoring) and R. Vinodkumar (assistant engineer, monitoring).
The JJM programme will focus on integrated demand and supply-side management of water at the local level including the creation of local infrastructure for source sustainability like rainwater harvesting, groundwater recharge and management of household water for recharge/reuse.
