Union Minister of State for Jal Shakti, Bishweswar Tudu has asked NE states to complete implementing the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) which seeks to provide assured tap water supply to every rural home before March 2024.

The minister, who reviewed the implementation of JJM and other flagship programmes of the ministry, said work will progress if the state governments are taking interest in the mission.

“The implementation of JJM at the national level is below 50% and we are suggesting all north eastern states as well as others to complete it before March, 2024,” Tudu told reporters here on Friday.

The progress of work under JJM in Meghalaya too is below 50%. “Due to the hilly area in the state and communication and transportation issues many agencies are not interested and not feeling comfortable to work here”.

As a result, the tender process for a project requires to be done twice or thrice which delays the implementation of the mission. “If possible, we will relax some guidelines so that the work is carried on,” he added.

The union minister said he was not happy with the government officials for failing to show the requisite papers. However, later the officials prepared all documents as well as the presentation as suggested by him.

“There is need to find out whether the procedure was followed or not in implementing other central schemes like Vikas Bandhan Yojana, in JJM, AMRUT and others,” he said adding this type of review had not been done previously and the state government officials were not prepared.