Palli (Samba), Apr 26 (PTI) Union government's Jal Jeevan Mission has fulfilled piped water dream of Palli villagers, prompting the dwellers to thank Prime Minister Narendra Modi for providing water connections to every household in their hamlet.

Nestled in the wheat fields on the right side of the Jammu and Punjab national highway, the mood in the village was festive on Sunday when the prime minister was in their locality to address representatives of the Panchayati Raj Institutions across the country, officials said.

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Randhir Sharma, Sarpanch of Palli Panchayat expressed gratitude to PM Modi.

"We are very happy that we got running water taps for the first time after independence. Earlier, it was a hard task to get water from hand pumps which were a source of various water-borne diseases," Sharma said.

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"We were also trained to check water quality on our own. This is the best gift we could get from PM Modi," he added.

Under the ambitious Jal Jeevan Mission launched by the PM in 2019, Palli village of Samba has been fully saturated with 448 Functional Household Tap Connection (FHTCs) at a cost of Rs 143.40 lakh, officials said.

A school teacher and 'Pani Samiti' member of Palli village, Sunaina hailed the Government's initiative to save women from drudgery, particularly school going girls who had to fetch water from long distances.

“Palli village has witnessed massive development after the inception of Jal Jeevan Mission in 2019. Girls can now invest the time, which they used to spend in fetching water from distant areas, in studies for brighter careers,” she said.

Sixteen-year-old Nandini Sharma said, she has stopped bringing bottled water from home after her school was provided with a pure drinking water supply.

The Palli village water supply project also included a tube well of 6000 Gallons of discharge capacity per hour.

“We have also constructed the sump tank as part of the scheme which is 30,000 gallons of capacity. The water will be stored in a 30,000-gallon capacity sump tank which will suffice the water requirement of Palli village,” a senior engineer of J&K Jal Shakti Department said.

On August 15, 2019, Prime Minister launched the Jal Jeevan scheme to provide piped water to all households in the country in the coming years.

In his Independence Day address, PM Modi had said half of the country's households do not have access to piped water.

To ensure that every household gets clean piped water in rural areas, Prime Minister set the target of covering all households by 2024 despite challenges.

However, Jammu and Kashmir set the target of completing tap water connections to all households by the year 2022.

The J&K has already achieved the target of providing tap water to all 22,422 schools and 23,926 Anganwadi centres in the union territory ahead of time, the officials said.

According to official figures, 4,86,000 households have been provided with functional tap water connections in the union territory since the launch of the scheme- on 15 August 2019.

To ensure a potable drinking water supply, the J&K Jal Shakti Department has also opened 97 water quality testing laboratories across the UT for the general public to test water samples at a nominal rate.

(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)