Jal Jeevan Mission has 2.82 crore employment generation potential: IIM Bangalore study

NEW DELHI: The Jal Jeevan Mission has an immense employment potential of 2.82 crore, a study conducted by the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore shows. IIM-Bangalore with technical support from the International Labour Organization (ILO) carried out a detailed analysis of direct and indirect employment creation potential under the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) and the report was published today.

The estimated generation of more than 2 crore person-year employment includes “59.93 lakh person-year of direct employment during the construction phase of JJM and an additional 2.22 crore person-year of indirect employment in the country through manpower engaged in production of the materials such as pipes, valves, pumps etc”, the report stated.

Almost 40% of the direct employment, ie 23.8 lakh person-year, created is estimated to be on account of engagement of engineers, managers, plumbers, electricians, motor mechanics and chemists. Additionally, 11.84 lakh person-years of direct employment has been estimated during the Operations and Maintenance (O&M) phase every year.

The report found that the investment being made under the mission will result in the creation of public assets and induced effects on employment.

The institute said both macro and micro approaches were adopted in the study to understand the implications of the investment on employment across industries as well as states.

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“In the macro approach, input-output model has been used to estimate the impact of the investment on employment across industries while in the micro approach, sample data collected of completed JJM schemes from different states were used to estimate direct employment at the time of construction and O&M phases of the projects,” it said.

Impact of Jal Jeevan Mission

Jal Jeevan Mission was announced in August 2019 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with an aim to provide tap water connection to all rural households.

Within 4 years after the launch, the coverage of tap water has increased from 3.23 crore (17%) households in 2019 to more than 12.77 crore (65.81%) households.

The IIM Bangalore study is third in a series of findings released recently on the impact of JJM on the lives of citizens in rural India. The recent findings by Nobel laureate Michael Kemer suggested that availability of safe drinking water has the potential to avert 1.36 lakh child deaths (below 5 years) in the country leading to almost 1/3rd reduction in child mortality rates.