National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP)

- Drinking water SlIpply is one of the components of Bharat Nirman.
- Under the NRDWP, the goal is to ensure that every rural person in the country has access to 70 litre of water per capita per day (1 pcd) within their household premises or at a distance of not more than 50 metre by 2022.
- The present status of provision of safe drinking water in rural areas as measured by habitations where the population is fully covered, as per information reported by the states is that about 73,8 per cent of rural habitations are fully covered.
- The rest are either partially covered or have chemically contaminated drinking water sources. As against the target of 798,967 habitations during the Eleventh Five Year Plan, the coverage up to March 31, 2012 was 665,052 (83·23 per cent).
- The States of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Nagaland, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Uttarakhand have exceeded their targets whereas Sikkim, Punjab, Assam, Rajasthan, Arunachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir have reported low (less than 50 per cent) achievement against targets.
- Expenditure for drinking water supply during the Bharat Nirman period increased considerably from Rs. 4098 crore in 2005-06 to Rs. 10,500 crore in 2012-13.
- All uncovered habitations have been reported covered as on 1 April, 2012.
- All uncovered habitations have been reported as being covered on April 1, 2012.
- Census 2011 reported that 84·2 per cent rural households have been covered with safe drinking water but the remaining 15·8 per cent of rural households are still deprived of safe drinking water.
- In 12th Five Year Plan, a focus has been put on increasing the safe water availability in rural areas.