aRTICLE | Role of Women In JJM
Jal Jeevan Mission
A women-driven campaign Women’s water woes have been one of the major concerns across the globe. It affects women in multitude of ways, irrespective class, age, colour. The Jal Jeevan Mission attempts to address these challenges. It enables and encourages women to deal with their problems on their own. Recognising women’s social rights has been a lengthy and challenging journey; nonetheless, gender parity for basic rights like access to safe drinking water is no longer a pipe dream Radhika Matta | Editorial Assistant
ater is required for a variety of critical applications such as industry, agriculture, drinking, sanitation, and hygiene. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) highlight “clean water and sanitation”(SDG 6.1 and 6.2) by achieving sustainable and equitable access to water for everyone, and recognises the importance of access to water. It is also well known that a family’s lack of access to resources has a negative impact on them. Women are disproportionately affected by exposure to unsafe water. Every year, women in India spend an average of 150 million workdays fetching water, time that could have been spent on education, skill development, and/or her own physical and emotional health. Several studies conducted over more than two decades around the world have concluded that when men and women are equally involved, there is a significant improvement in leadership, transparency, and sustainability of water supplies, compared to cases where women are marginally or not involved at all. In fact, according to a
30 February 2022 | www.urbanupdate.in
World Bank study, simply incorporating women in water projects can enhance their efficacy by six to seven times compared to those that do not.
Vision and mission
Jal Jeevan Mission’s main goal is to start a women-led revolution that will decentralise the system and empower the community, particularly women, to deal with their own water issues. As it confronts the long-standing concerns of water security in India, the Jal Jeevan Mission aims to raise a generation of water-aware citizens. Today, rural women are taking up roles that usually rested with males such as plumbers, masons, and electricians, as well as testing water quality and updating results on the portal.
Responsibility of a woman
Collecting water is said to be a woman’s duty in India and there is no respite, even if she is menstruating, ill, or otherwise occupied. Photographs of women in lines with colourful plastic water containers in urban areas draw attention to water scarcity and the enormous lines that people face waiting for water tankers to arrive in cities. Women in urban areas, particularly on the outskirts of towns and in slum regions, bear a disproportionate share of the burden of water scarcity. Water is occasionally delivered in the middle of the night in some locations, causing these ladies to lose sleep, affecting their productivity. Indeed, in the global south, there are women who are denied an education just because they must collect water rather than attend school. According to a study, every year about 23 per cent of Indian girls drop out of school on attaining puberty due to lack of clean water to cater to their hygiene needs. Moreover, UNICEF figures suggest, girls and women spend an estimated 200 million hours every day collecting water. It is the females who are tasked with dragging large cargo over incredibly challenging terrains in 8 out of 10 households without running water.
