AP may lose Rs 3,183 crore grant for water mission

Though the Centre has been granting thousands of crores of rupees every year under various schemes, the state government is not making use of it, Rajya Sabha MP G V L Narasimha Rao pointed out.To draw the Central share in 2021-22, the state government needs to provide the shortfall in its matching share into the Escrow Account for JJM and utilise the same.


PTI | Amaravati | Updated: 06-12-2021 20:32 IST | Created: 06-12-2021 20:30 IST
AP may lose Rs 3,183 crore grant for water mission
Representative Image. Image Credit: ANI
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The cash strapped Andhra Pradesh government is literally letting go a sum of Rs 3,183 crore given as grant by the Centre under the Jal Jeevan Mission to provide Functional Household Tap Connection (FHTC) in every rural home.

The state currently has only 51.67 per cent FHTC coverage as 49,17,126 households out of the total 95,16,848 have direct access to drinking water.

Since the start of the JJM, only 18,42,816 (19.36 per cent) tap connections have been provided in the state so far.

In the last three financial years, the Centre granted a sum of Rs 4,975.15 crore, including an opening balance of Rs 449.15 crore, according to official data.

The state government, however, could draw only Rs 670.26 crore in the last three years as it could not chip in its share of Rs 453.66 crore in the previous two financial years.

In the current financial year, the state so far could not draw even a single rupee out of the allocated Rs 3,182.88 crore, the data revealed. ''It is really baffling that the state government has not utilised such a massive grant for a crucial programme. Though the Centre has been granting thousands of crores of rupees every year under various schemes, the state government is not making use of it,'' Rajya Sabha MP G V L Narasimha Rao pointed out.

To draw the Central share in 2021-22, the state government needs to provide the shortfall in its matching share into the Escrow Account for JJM and utilise the same. The total expenditure incurred so far on JJM in the last three years in AP was only Rs 596.19 crore, government data revealed.

The JJM, launched in 2019, is scheduled to be completed in 2024 in AP by achieving 100 per cent FHTC coverage. But given the poor financial condition of the state government and the very low utilisation of central grants, officials fear that the target might be missed. The other Telegu state, Telangana, has already achieved 100 per cent coverage by providing 54.06 lakh FHTCs in rural households.

Rao, who is also a member of the state-level DISHA Committee under the Union Ministry of Rural Development, said it only exposed the ''gross inefficiency'' and negligence of the Andhra Pradesh government. He said AP now stood to lose a whopping Rs 3,183 crore as the grant would lapse if not utilised by end of March 2022.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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