10 Years of Telangana: Flagship Mission Bhagiratha takes drinking water to every household in State

HYDERABAD: Before the formation of the state women folk in Telangana used to trek miles to fetch water, sometimes of questionable quality but they had no choice.

With productive time wasted to find drinking water, they were deprived of making a contribution to their families.

After the formation of the state, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao envisaged a flagship project ‘Mission Bhagiratha’ coined in the name of Bhagiratha, a legendary king of the Ikshavaku dynasty who invoked Goddess Ganga to come to the earth. On August 7, 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi formally launched Mission Bhagiratha at Komatibanda Village, Gajwel, in Medak District.

The unique and most comprehensive drinking water project was aimed to cover all households in saturation mode. It envisaged a supply of treated drinking water to every household at their doorstep at the rate of 100 Litres Per Capita Per Day (LPCD) in rural areas, 135 LPCD in municipalities and nagar panchayats and 150 LPCD in municipal corporations, except Hyderabad urban agglomeration inside Outer Ring Road (ORR) duly integrating existing feasible infrastructure.

In all, 10 percent of the total water in this project was earmarked to meet the industrial needs which in turn will create employment and catalyse economic growth.

A mammoth 1.30 lakh km stretch of pipeline

Under the Telangana Drinking Water Supply Project, a mammoth 1.30-lakh-km stretch of pipelines were laid. For this project, the surface water of perennial rivers and major reservoirs was utilised as a raw water source. Taken up with an estimated cost of Rs 35,000 crore, Mission Bhagiratha was intended to ensure that no female member of a household would need to walk miles to carry a pot of water.

As part of the Mission Bhagiratha programme, surface treated water was supplied to all rural habitations duly providing functional tap connection to each and every house and bulk water supply to Urban Local Bodies (ULBs).

The project was divided into 26 segments and 34 sub-segments based on the topography, commandability, proximity, and ease of connectivity from various dependable sources for providing surface-treated water supply.

The government made a clear-cut allocation of water for the project. About 59.94 TMC of water from rivers Krishna and Godavari and major reservoirs fed by these rivers. The government also allocated 23.44 TMC from Krishna basin sources and 32.58 TMC from Godavari basin sources for Mission Bhagiratha, duly fixing Minimum Draw Down Levels (MDDL) for each reservoir.

Achievements

All the targeted 23,839 rural habitations were covered with treated water supply. Around 136 Isolated habitations were covered with potable water supply through Individual Solar schemes. Further, 121 urban local bodies were covered with Bulk supply.

All the targeted 57.01 Lakhs rural households in the state were provided with Functional Household Tap Connections (FHTCs).

In addition to this, all the schools, anganwadi, and all Public institutions were provided with FHTCs.

Accolades

HUDCO presented an award thrice (2014-15, 2016-17 & 2018-19) to the Government of Telangana for outstanding contributions in the infrastructure sector through innovative initiatives.

Prime Minister made special mention of Mission Bhagiratha in his “Mann ki Baat” on May 22, 2016, and applauded the efforts made by the Telangana Government in the drinking water sector.

This project received encomium from Prime Minister, central ministers, NITI Aayog, 15th Finance Commission, and other states such as Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Bihar, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, and Odisha.

Mission Bhagiratha bagged the SKOCH Award 2018 for Online Monitoring System and Mobile Apps developed in-house.

Mission Bhagiratha received 1st prize in the National Water Mission Awards-2019 and Rs 2 lakhs cash Prize under the category of increasing water use efficiency by 20 percent.

Telangana received 1st Prize under Jal Jeevan Awards-2022 on October 2, 2022, for showing exemplary performance in the category of ‘Regularity’ of tap water supply to rural households for the villages assessed during 2021-22.

Telangana was the 1st large state in the country that achieved 100 percent coverage of rural households with FHTCs through sustainable surface water sources.