Jal Jeevan Mission 2.0 Sets Aside Rs 5,000 Crore for Tribal Villages

A dedicated pot of Rs 5,000 crore has been set aside under Jal Jeevan Mission 2.0 to close the drinking water gaps in tribal villages covered by two tribal welfare missions. The figure was placed before states at the second follow-up review and convergence meeting called by the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, which works under the Ministry of Jal Shakti.

The two missions involved

The first is the Pradhan Mantri Janjati Adivasi Nyaya Maha Abhiyan, written in short as PM-JANMAN. The second is the Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan, or DA-JGUA. Both aim at filling basic service gaps in tribal habitations, and the water component is to be delivered through the Jal Jeevan Mission.

Who met and why

Ashok K. K. Meena, Secretary of the department, chaired the meeting. Senior officers of the National Jal Jeevan Mission, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, state rural water supply and public health engineering departments and state tribal welfare departments attended. The meeting carried forward commitments the states and union territories had made at an earlier departmental summit, where they had agreed to reach saturation of tap water coverage in every eligible village under the two missions.

Four priorities for the states

• Matching the records of tribal welfare departments with the mission databases so that one validated list exists
• Finding villages and habitations still left out of coverage
• Drawing up technically sound detailed project reports with verified local government directory codes
• Joint validation and certification of coverage already achieved

Checking taps on the ground

The Ministry of Tribal Affairs has run a state-wise exercise named SurveySetu, under which the status of functional household tap connections is verified household by household. States were told to present its findings jointly before the District Water and Sanitation Mission, which is chaired by the Deputy Commissioner or District Magistrate, and to settle any mismatch through field verification.

Where the states stand

Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Kerala and Manipur were asked to answer specific observations on code validation, project report papers, service levels and cost per tap connection. Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Assam were pressed to act on observations already sent to them. Ladakh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh said their proposals would reach the department during October 2026. Kamal Kishore Soan, Additional Secretary and Mission Director of the National Jal Jeevan Mission, stressed that water supply and tribal welfare departments must own the proposals jointly before a committee co-chaired by the two secretaries.