NEW DELHI, INDIA / RankWire.AI / – Prime Minister Narendra Modi has highlighted India’s water governance experience as a useful reference for countries across the Global South. He shared an article on October 6 that reviewed reforms developed first in Gujarat and later expanded through national programmes. The article said reliable water services depend on governance, planning and local participation alongside physical infrastructure. It also outlined how India combined public investment with community management and institutional reform. The focus comes as many developing countries face rising demand, climate pressure and uneven access to safe water.
The article reviews about 25 years of water policy changes and identifies several lessons from India’s experience. It points to stronger institutions, integrated management of water resources and services, community ownership and early planning for large-scale delivery. It also describes a framework built around political leadership, public financing, partnerships and public participation. These principles have appeared across programmes covering drinking water, sanitation, groundwater and conservation. Narendra Modi said the experience shows that durable water security requires both infrastructure and capable local systems.
India’s rural drinking-water programme provides a major example of that expansion. Jal Jeevan Mission data showed about 15.91 crore rural households had tap-water connections by August 10, 2026. Around 3.23 crore households had such connections when the programme began in 2019. The mission aims to provide functional household tap connections and reliable drinking-water services across rural India. Its latest phase places greater emphasis on service quality, maintenance and system performance. That shift reflects a broader move from counting infrastructure to monitoring whether water services continue to work.
Jal Jeevan Mission expands focus on reliable services
The Union Cabinet approved Jal Jeevan Mission 2.0 in March 2026 and extended the programme through December 2028. The revised mission carries an approved outlay of ₹8.69 lakh crore, including ₹3.59 lakh crore in central assistance. The government also directed states and union territories to prepare reform plans covering implementation, financing and monitoring. The new framework gives more attention to operations and maintenance after construction. It also links funding with measurable service delivery, stronger local management and continued access to safe drinking water.
Jal Jeevan Mission 2.0 also includes Sujalam Bharat, a national digital system for rural piped-water infrastructure. The platform maps systems from water source to household tap and assigns each village a service-area identity. Officials expect the system to support planning, asset tracking and accountability. Local governments and village institutions remain central to daily management. Community bodies can help oversee services, report problems and support maintenance. The approach links digital monitoring with local responsibility rather than treating technology as a substitute for community participation.
Local management anchors wider water reforms
The article shared by Modi says countries should manage water resources and water services together. That approach connects infrastructure decisions with the long-term availability of the water supplying each system. It also places local institutions at the centre of service delivery. India’s current water reforms follow the same structure through village-level management, digital monitoring and national funding. The model combines large public programmes with local oversight. It also ties drinking-water access to broader efforts in groundwater management, sanitation, conservation and river restoration.
India’s water governance framework does not rely on a single scheme. It brings together household tap connections, groundwater programmes, sanitation measures and conservation efforts under a wider policy approach. The article presents those reforms as lessons that other developing countries can study, not as a universal template. India’s latest measures continue to link infrastructure spending with accountability, maintenance and community participation. The government’s current programme also keeps service reliability at the centre of implementation, making long-term system performance a key measure of rural water delivery.
