India’s race for universal water supply shouldn’t come at cost of water quality

Recent reports about the residents of Chhattisgarh’s Kundru village being compelled to consume drainage water due to the non-availability of hand-pump water shouldn’t shock us. Villagers in other districts of the state have been through similar harrowing experiences for years. In the absence of piped water supply, these villages depend solely on hand-pump water for drinking and other domestic uses. This, unfortunately, is the grim reality of most villages in India, despite the Narendra Modi government’s Nal Se Jal scheme launched in 2019 with the aim of providing approximately 18.93 crore rural households with 55 litres per capita per day drinking water.