Union Budget 2025: Why does Modi Govt want to extend its Jal Jeevan Mission till 2028

“Since 2019, 15 crore households representing 80 per cent of India’s rural population have been provided access to potable tap water connections. To achieve 100 per cent coverage, I am pleased to announce the extension of the Mission until 2028 with an enhanced total outlay,” Sitharaman announced in her Budget speech.

She elaborated that the Mission’s focus will be on the quality of infrastructure and operations and maintenance of rural piped water supply schemes through “jan bhagidhari” (public participation). Separate Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) will be signed with states/union territories to ensure sustainability and a citizen-centric water service delivery, she added.

The announcement is significant as the scheme was to come to an end last year. The JJM was one of the ambitious schemes of Modi 2.0.

The allocation of ₹67,000 crore under the scheme for 2025-26 is lower as compared to the budgetary estimate of Rs 70,163 crore in last year’s budget, but higher when compared to the RE for 2024-25. The reason is that the JJM saw a massive cut of 67.65% in its allocation at the RE stage. Here, the government had revised the JJM budget to Rs 22,694 crore from the budgetary estimate of Rs 70,163 crore in the Union Budget 2024-25 presented in July last year.

Among the other schemes of the Jal Shakti Ministry, the interlinking of rivers saw a cut at the RE stage as its allocation was revised to Rs 2,000 crore from Rs 4,000 crore in the budgetary estimate of 2024-25. For 2025-26, an allocation of Rs 2,400 crore has been kept for the interlinking of rivers programme.

An amount of Rs 3,400 crore has been allocated for Namami Gange-II for 2025-26, which is a little higher as compared to the outlay of Rs 3,345.70 crore earmarked in the budget last year. No change has been made to the allocation of Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin). It has been kept at Rs 7,192 crore for 2025-26.