CAG finds lapses in Jal Jeevan Mission implementation in Kerala

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Huge shortfalls successful yearly targets, geo-tagged household pat connections wrongly marked successful the Lakshadweep Sea, and 2.13 lakh pat connections chopped wrong the aforesaid period they were provided are among the findings successful a Comptroller and Auditor General of India’s (CAG) show audit study connected Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) implementation successful Kerala.

While JJM has helped Kerala marque “considerable progress” successful expanding the functional household pat transportation (FHTC) web successful its agrarian areas, pitfalls successful readying has led to debased sum of susceptible areas, including ‘quality-affected’ and tribal areas, the study tabled successful the Kerala Legislative Assembly connected Tuesday observed.

The audit covered the play from 2019 to 2024. The national-level JJM envisions 100% FHTC sum of agrarian households. In Kerala, the people was 54.45 lakh households astatine a outgo of ₹44,714.79 crore.

Of the 4.04 lakh FHTC disconnections reported successful during the audit period, 2,13,991 (52.92%) occurred the precise aforesaid period they were provided. This indicates a deficiency of involvement connected the portion of the beneficiaries and a anticipation that connections were being provided “without a realistic appraisal of the request oregon grade of availability of water,” the study said.

The JJM operational guidelines issued by the Jal Shakti Ministry successful 2019 required States to geo-tag each the assets of h2o proviso schemes for transparency and monitoring purposes. The CAG recovered that successful 5,107 instances, the geo-tagged locations were shown extracurricular the designated Kerala district. “In 99 cases, the geo-tagged information captured successful respect of FHTCs were related to positions extracurricular the State, including 8 cases seen erroneously marked successful Lakshadweep Sea,” the audit study said. In a June 2025 reply, the State authorities attributed specified mix-ups to web limitations successful definite areas. “Coordinates were sometimes recorded done machine systems, resulting successful determination information being captured based connected the system’s IP code alternatively than the existent site,” the authorities said, adding that errors were being corrected.

The CAG further observed that the shortfall successful accomplishment of FHTC targets during 2020-21 to 2023-24 ranged from 74.76% to 83.94%, indicating a “disconnect betwixt readying and implementation.” According to the State government, Kerala had not taken up JJM works successful 2019-20. So, erstwhile it was launched nationwide. This had resulted successful the backlogs of erstwhile years getting added to the consequent year’s targets.

While the people for 2020-21 was 21.42 lakh connections, the connections really fixed was 4.04 lakh connections. In 2021-22 these were respectively 29.37 lakh and 6.63 lakh, and 32.96 lakh and 5.29 lakh successful 2022-23 and 14.54 lakh and 3.66 lakh successful 2023-24.

The CAG besides recovered that 2 test-checked grama panchayats with ‘Har Ghar Jal’ presumption were inactive paying the Kerala Water Authority (KWA) for tanker lorry supplies. As Har Ghar Jal panchayats are expected to person 100% of their households supplied with potable h2o done FHTCs, they were not expected to beryllium connected alternate sources, it noted.

In the 2025-26 Union Budget, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced the hold of JJM till 2028, which had travel arsenic a large alleviation for Kerala. The CAG study connected the Kerala JJM assumes significance, fixed the information that Kerala continues to languish astatine the bottommost nationally successful implementation. As per the JJM dashboard maintained by the Jal Shakti Ministry, implementation stands astatine 54.88%.