One Nation, One Water? Why Ladakhis are wary of Jal Jeevan Mission

As Ladakh hurtles towards achieving saturation under the Centre’s Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM), Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Har Ghar Nal (('A tap in every home') largesse is turning into a blight for its intended beneficiaries in the Union Territory.

The Mission, with its goal of providing functional tap connections to every household, is a classic case in point of how schemes, even those with noble intentions, go awry when conceptualised by policymakers in Delhi with scant regard for crucial local factors, particularly of ecologically fragile regions.

Ladakhis against tap connection

“Ladakh is largely a cold desert. We depend entirely on natural sources such as glaciers, rivers, springs and waterfalls for water supply," explained Ghulam Hussain, former sarpanch of Turtuk village, situated at the far end of Ladakh’s Nubra Valley and barely 50 km from India’s border with Pakistan.

"Down the centuries, our ancestors taught us the meaning of jal jeevan – nurture water sources, draw only as much water as is needed for daily needs, and ensure that the main water sources and the water channels in villages remain clean. Now the government is reimagining jal jeevan and forcing everyone to get piped water and tap connections,” he told The Federal.

“Most of these tap connections are useless. They don’t function in the winters because temperatures are so low that water freezes in the pipes and they have no guarantee of functioning every summer because the source that the pipelines are connected to may have water this year but could dry out next summer,” he further said. 

Government statistics

According to official figures from the Ministry of Jal Shakti, Ladakh has 40,808 households.

Back in August 2019, when Modi launched the Jal Jeevan Mission, the Union Territory had only 1,414 household tap connections. Five years later, the ministry claims as many as 38,067 households – 93.28 per cent – of Ladakh have received functional household tap connections (FHTC).

In the past five years, the Union Territory has drawn over Rs 923 crore in Central funds to hurtle towards complete saturation under the Mission.

To many, these statistics would seem praiseworthy; a remarkable turnaround in accessibility to the very basic amenity of water supply in an arid region known for its treacherous topography. Why then are locals, already agitated over the Centre’s obstinate refusal to list Ladakh under the Constitution’s Sixth Schedule, wary about the “imposition” of the Jal Jeevan Mission, its need and efficacy?

Imposition from Delhi

“The most basic problem with this scheme and several other programmes that the Centre wants to implement in Ladakh is that they have been formulated keeping the heartland states in mind and not regions like Ladakh or other hill states. This ‘one size fits all’ approach does Ladakh more harm than good,” Mohammad Haneefa, the newly elected independent Lok Sabha MP from Ladakh, told The Federal.

Haneefa said people from across the Union Territory had told him about the pitfalls of the JJM and the concerns they had against the scheme.

“There are a number of practical concerns which Delhi doesn’t seem to understand. The majority of Ladakh is fed by natural sources of water; every village has natural running water channels and people divert water from these channels as per their need, be it for domestic or agricultural use. Since this is water coming straight from glaciers, waterfalls and springs, it is potable and you will never find anyone complaining about water-borne diseases in Ladakh,” Haneefa said.

Erratic water resources

The Ladakh MP explained: “What does Jal Jeevan do – you block water sources, stagnate the source and lay down pipelines to give household tap connections. Tomorrow, if the water source is contaminated, you will spread that contamination all over.

"Secondly, a lot of our water sources are not perennial because some freeze in the winters while others dry up in the summers for various reasons, including climate change; so the government may spend crores to lay down a pipeline from a source that has water today but six months later, it may dry out. Of what use will that pipeline be then?”

Iqbal Jamshed, a resident of Hunder in Ladakh’s Nubra Valley, believes the poorly formulated Mission “serves the interests of a handful of contractors” who the government ropes in for laying down the water pipelines and tap connections.

“The contractor will get his money for the work the government gives but two months later, if the pipelines are destroyed in a landslide, which is very common in parts of Ladakh, or the water source becomes unviable, then the contractor will have no liability after having made his money and will possibly still get another contract for laying down the pipes again,” said Jamshed.

Contractors reap profits

Hussain pointed at another perilous outcome of the laying of Jal Jeevan pipelines.

“In many areas, the contractors want to lay down underground pipelines. Any Ladakhi knows that pipelines have heavy wear and tear in Ladakh because of the weather conditions. The government says Jal Jeevan pipes are damage-proof but that isn’t the case.

"Contractors use this damage-free pipe excuse to push for underground pipelines because it pushes up the project cost. Then they dig up our villages – the roads, agricultural fields, everything and when in a few months the pipes need repair or maintenance, they come and dig up the whole village again. In the end, it is the villagers who suffer because not only do we have to keep repairing our village paths all the time but our crop is also damaged due to the constant digging, repair and maintenance of the lines that are laid through our fields,” said Hussain.

Jal Jeevan pipelines getting washed away in flash floods or destroyed in landslides is rather a common complaint in Ladakh, concedes a senior official of the UT’s administration who has been involved in the Mission’s implementation for over two years now.

Damages to water lines

“Just earlier this month a huge tract of HDPE pipes (High Density Polyethylene pipes, used in Ladakh under the Jal Jeevan Mission to prevent water from freezing inside the pipes in extremely low temperatures) was damaged in Timesgam village of Khaltse because of a landslide and the water supply was disrupted.

"Our team has been trying to restore the supply by laying new pipelines but this is a common challenge across Ladakh. We have to keep constant vigil on whether Jal Jeevan pipelines are functioning properly or not; if they have been washed away or damaged in any way,” the official told The Federal, requesting anonymity.

The official added: “The Jal Jeevan Mission is a time-bound scheme and all work under it is to be completed within this year. Once the Mission is complete, we are not sure how vigilant the local administration will be on repair and maintenance work. There is a real fear that in a few years all these pipelines may be destroyed and water supply to the thousands of households that have been added to the FHTC network will get severely hampered.”

The scheme’s pitfalls

Abdullah, a resident of Tyakshi village, adds that in several areas, the promise of Har Ghar Nal is a farce.

“The scheme may be good and there is no denying that household accessibility to potable water in Ladakh is poor but the way the Mission is being implemented is not right. On paper, they may claim that every household has been given a tap connection but this is not true. In many houses, the tap is there but water is not there.

"In other areas, the pipeline has come but there are one or two common tap connections for the entire village and people have to line up to take water from there. Why would we want to waste our time lining up at a community tap when every village has water channels; if we have to go out to get water, we can just go and get it from the water channel instead of queuing up at the tap,” Abdullah told The Federal.

T Norboo, who owns the popular Karma Inn hotel in Hunder, also believes the Mission is “ill conceived” and will be “counter-productive in the long run”.

“People may be happy about getting tap connections at home now but in the medium to long term there is a flip side to this. Currently, people in our villages are conscious about the need for water conservation. Once FHTCs are normalised, people will stop paying attention to water conservation like they have in the plains. If you have a tap with running water at home, you don’t think about the source of that water; whether it is getting replenished or depleted or if it is clean or contaminated,” asserted Norboo, who has been involved locally in awareness campaigns around water conservation, crop diversification and agricultural advancements.

Ignoring Ladakhi experts