New Delhi, Jan 5 (PTI) Every rural household in more than two lakh villages across 161 districts has been provided with a tap water connection, the government said on Friday.

Till now, 14 crore or 72.71 per cent of rural households have been provided with tap water connections under the Jal Jeevan Mission, it said.

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Six states -- Goa, Telangana, Haryana, Gujarat, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh -- and the Union Territories of Puducherry, Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands have achieved 100 per cent coverage, the Union Jal Shakti Ministry said in a statement.

Mizoram at 98.68 per cent, Arunachal Pradesh at 98.48 per cent and Bihar at 96.42 per cent are on track to achieving saturation in the near future, it said.

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However, Jharkhand, Rajasthan and West Bengal still have less than 50 per cent tap water connections in rural households, according to the official figures.

"More than two lakh villages are now 'Har Ghar Jal'," the ministry said in a statement.

In addition to household connections, the ministry said tap water supply has been successfully provided in 9.24 lakh (90.65 per cent) schools and 9.57 lakh (86.63 per cent) Anganwadi centres nationwide.

In the 112 aspirational districts, tap water access has surged from 21.41 lakh (7.86 per cent) households at the time of launch to 1.96 crore (72.08 per cent), it said.

The 'Har Ghar Jal' initiative aims to bring substantial socio-economic benefits, liberating the rural population, particularly women and young girls, from the arduous daily task of fetching water.

More than 5.29 lakh Village Water & Sanitation Committees/Pani Samitis have been constituted, along with the preparation of 5.17 lakh Village Action Plans, focusing on drinking water source management, greywater treatment, and regular operations and maintenance of in-village water supply systems, the ministry said.

Over 23.55 lakh women have been trained for testing water samples using field testing kits to ensure quality and rigorous testing of water samples from source and delivery points is conducted regularly.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)