New Delhi, October 3: Setting another milestone, on the occasion of the birth anniversaries of Mahatma Gandhi and former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri on October 2, the Yogi-led government in Uttar Pradesh provided as many as 1.07 lakh tap water connections in the rural parts of the state in a single day.
While UP has set two records in the last 20 days in terms of providing tap water connections in rural areas, many states, including Rajasthan, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Maharashtra, failed to even reach the 10,000 mark. Earlier, the Yogi government set a record on September 17, the occasion of PM Modi’s 72nd birthday by providing about 1.21 lakh tap water connections in rural households in the state which coincided with PM Modi’s 72nd birthday.
It may be noted that on Gandhi Jayanti, as many as 1.34 lakh tap connections were provided nationwide.
The districts of Bulandshahr, Shahjahanpur, Mirzapur, Varanasi, and Gorakhpur made the biggest contributions to connecting the most households to tap water, helping the state rank first in the nation.
Not a single connection given in Bihar, Punjab
Of the 134968 tap water connections provided in the country, UP alone accounted for over 107774 connections. As per data, other states that provided tap water connections on October 2 were Tamil Nadu (10064), Andhra Pradesh (3121), Maharashtra (2954), West Bengal (2159), Rajasthan (2027), Chhattisgarh (1517), Orissa (1439), Karnataka (1422), Madhya Pradesh (696), Jharkhand (627), Uttarakhand (514) whereas in Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Punjab, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Sikkim, not even a single tap water connection was provided on the day.
Bulandshahr tops in UP in provision of tap water connections
The Yogi 2.0 government has set a target of ensuring 100% saturation in drinking water in water starved areas of Bundelkhand and Vindhya regions of the state by 2024. Among the districts, Bulandshahr topped by giving 7506 tap water connections, followed by 6418 in Shahjahanpur, 6054 in Mirzapur, 5047 in Varanasi, and 4012 in Gorakhpur. Besides, 3681 tap water connections were installed in Bareilly , 2857 in Sitapur, 2516 in Deoria, 2356 in Meerut, 2158 in Hardoi, 2488 in Gonda, and 2023 in Shravasti.
So far, under the ‘Har Ghar Jal Scheme’, pure drinking water is being supplied to as many as 4843733 houses through tap connections in Uttar Pradesh. Pure drinking water is being supplied from tap to households in 4651759 households in Odisha, 3057249 in Kerala , 2928134 in Rajasthan, 2500622 in Assam, 153009 in Arunachal Pradesh, 1439077 in Jharkhand, 992206 in Uttarakhand, 402413 in Tripura, 334864 in Manipur, and 257794 in Meghalaya.
