The trailblazers for Jal Jeevan Mission
Jal Bahinis are accelerating drinking water safety and governance in Chhattisgarh
Meet Munni, Deepti, Urmila, Laxmi and Manisha. The inspiring Jal Bahinis from Masora Village in Chhattisgarh. Jal Bahini are water warriors who take up a leadership role for the governance of drinking water services in villages.
To accelerate change at the community level, Public Health Engineering Department, Chhattisgarh, in collaboration with UNICEF, conceptualized ‘Jal Bahini’, a cadre of five women in each village. At the forefront are women leading this change whilst playing a critical role as Jal Bahini in the state of Chhattisgarh.
There are 109,000 registered Jal Bahini, in Chhattisgarh, a cadre of five women per village in 19,668 villages, they are recognized at the highest level of governance in the state (Chief Minister) and elected through a Gram Sabha.
The Government of Chhattisgarh launched ‘Jal Bahini’ on 22 April 2022 and gradually introduced in every district of the state. UNICEF supported Jal Jeevan Mission Chhattisgarh in ‘Jal Bahini’ in conceptualization, launch, roll out and capacity building in all the districts of Chhattisgarh.
Jal Bahini concept also aligns with the UNICEF’s Gender Policy 2021-30, which mandates that UNICEF goes beyond simply responding to the manifestations of inequality, and instead, works actively to remove the underlying structural barriers – such as harmful social norms and gendered power systems – that perpetuate inequalities.
Major five functions for Jal Bahinis:
- Effective participation of community in planning and implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission through community mobilization.
- Interpersonal communication for water tariff collection,
- Opening and maintaining capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operational expenditure (OPEX) account including operation and maintenance (O&M) for revenue and expenditure.
- Periodically organizing ‘Jal Sabhas’ to sensitize community on concerns related to water quality testing results, importance of potable water, health impacts of contaminated water & sanitary survey.
- Support mechanic, pump operator and sub engineer in chlorination of water sources.
109,000 ‘Jal Bahinis’ across 19,668 villages of the state under the leadership of Sarpanch (village level elected representative), have shown commendable results through conducting 1,207,973 water quality tests of the drinking water sources and delivery points using field test kits (FTKs) during FY 2021-22 and 672,000 water quality tests during FY 2022-23, keeping Chhattisgarh state as the no one state in the country for more than 10 months.
“I feel very proud being a Jal Bahini as it gives me recognition and authority to conduct gram sabhas to spread awareness on water quality issues”
Impact on community
The community’s happiness has been evident and overwhelming joy could be seen on the villagers’ face after getting potable tap connections in their houses. After hundreds of years of drudgery of fetching water, they understood that the basic luxury of getting water on demand is a gateway to all the other empowering lifelines like a healthy family and education.
UNICEF and Jal Jeevan Mission
Access to clean drinking water is the right of every child.
UNICEF continues to work with the Government of India to ensure clean drinking water reaches the most vulnerable communities and children in India.
Currently, Chhattisgarh has provided 2.8 million (57 percent) households with tap water connections in Chhattisgarh since the launch of the Drinking Water Mission in 2019. India’s national level flagship programme, ‘Jal Jeevan Mission’ (JJM) is committed to provide 100 percent functional household tap connections to 161 million rural households across the country by 2024.
