By Krishna Jha
Reports of the Centre planning to massively reduce the outlay of its flagship rural tap water scheme – Jal Jeevan Mission (JLM) – are ominous. This would mean cutting the outlay of the JLM by almost 60 percent from Rs 67,000 crore allocated in Budget 2025-26 to Rs 17,000 crore in the revised estimates of the current financial year.
Water is the stream of life. General availability of cleaner water shows the level of culture, because it shows the concern about those who suffer from lack of resources. It shows the general level of awareness about the quality of life of entire humanity. Those responsible for clean water supply have to be conscious about the fact that the quality of piped water supply must be checked at delivery point. Most of the short comings are detected here only.
The recent outbreak in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, has starkly highlighted this risk. On December 31, 2025, residents of Bhagirathpura fell ill after drinking tap water. Dozens of people died and hundreds were hospitalized after drinking the contaminated water.
A major contributor to the wellbeing of the common people is supply of clean water. Any impurity symbolizes poor quality of the sociopolitical system. Such a system almost does not have any space in its agenda of duties towards the miserable sections, the larger sections of masses living in all pervading squalor. The acute deprivation becomes a gift from the corporate sections who never try to do anything that could be added to the well being of the rest. Water is in itself a major care giver in the society. It is from this source alone, most of the challenges attack the society. Recently we saw how contaminated water played a devastating role in Indore.
In fact, in the villages of Madhya Pradesh, the drinking water has quietly turned into a public health hazard. A new report by the central government’s Jal Jeevan Mission reveals that more than one-third of rural drinking water in the state is unfit for human consumption, exposing millions to invisible but deadly contamination.
According to the Functionality Assessment Report released on January 4, 2026, only 63.3 percent of water samples in Madhya Pradesh passed quality tests, compared to a national average of 76 percent. That means 36.7 percent of rural drinking water samples in the state were found unsafe, containing bacterial or chemical contamination.
The samples were collected from over 15,000 rural households across Madhya Pradesh in September-October 2024.
The situation is even more alarming in places meant to heal and protect. In government hospitals, only 12 percent of water samples passed microbiological safety tests, compared to a national average of 83.1 percent. About 88 percent of hospitals in Madhya Pradesh are supplying unsafe drinking water to patients.
In schools, 26.7 percent of samples failed microbiological tests, exposing children to contaminated water on a daily basis.
In Balaghat, Betul, and Chhindwara, more than 50% of water samples were contaminated. In Madhya Pradesh, only 31.5 percent of households have tap connections, far below the national average of 70.9 percent.
Even where pipelines exist, the system is broken; 99.1 percent of villages have piped supply, but only 76.6 percent of households have functioning taps. That means every fourth household has a dead tap or no water at all.
Even worse, tap water does not mean safe water. In Indore district, officially declared 100 percent connected, only 33 percent of households receive safe drinking water.
Across the state, 33 percent of water samples failed quality tests, confirming that the crisis is not about access alone but about toxic delivery. The central government has termed the situation a “system-generated disaster” and has warned that if water quality does not improve, funding may be reduced this year.
That warning came after a tragedy. 18 people died in Bhagirathpura, Indore, after drinking contaminated water. 429 people were hospitalised, of which 16 are in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and three on ventilators. The Madhya Pradesh High Court has now formally recognised the crisis as a public health emergency. In its order, the court stated that “the right to life under Article 21 includes the right to clean drinking water” and that the present situation falls within the ambit of a public health emergency.
It is a development steeped in irony because Indore has been voted India’s cleanest city for several years in a row for its exemplary waste segregation and management practice among other cleanliness measures it undertook. As has become the unfortunate norm after every mishap, the blame game began swiftly with authorities pinning it on tardy progress on installing a fresh supply line.
A committee is to investigate the issue, but things should not have been allowed to precipitate such a deathly crisis in the first place. This is the second instance of a water issue in the State in the past two months.
In majority of cases, decades-old pipelines were identified as the primary cause. Many Indian cities continue to rely on water distribution networks laid more than 40 years ago. In Delhi, for instance, around 18 per cent of water pipes are over 30 years old, according to a report by the Delhi Jal Board. Cracks in these pipes — often laid alongside or below sewer lines — create repeated contamination risks.
Water contamination outbreaks in India are often associated with the monsoon months, when flooding and overflowing drains increase the risk of sewage ingress. But a review of at least 34 reported incidents over the past year shows that sewage-contaminated piped water is no longer a seasonal phenomenon.
Cases were reported across all months and seasons.
In the span of just a month — between December 2025 and January 7, 2026 — at least 19 people died and more than 3,500 fell ill, largely after consuming contaminated tap water.
During this short period, at least 11 incidents of piped water contamination were reported from cities across the country, including Patna (Bihar), Raipur (Chhattisgarh), Bengaluru (Karnataka), Dehradun (Uttarakhand), Gandhinagar (Gujarat), Guwahati (Assam), Jammu (Jammu and Kashmir), Ranchi (Jharkhand), Indore (Madhya Pradesh), Chennai (Tamil Nadu) and Gurugram (Haryana). These included nine state capitals, underlining the fragile and ageing foundations of India’s urban drinking water infrastructure. (IPA Service)
