Kolkata, The West Bengal government on Monday signed a memorandum of understanding with the Jal Shakti ministry to accelerate tap water coverage in rural households under its Jal Jeevan Mission.Bengal govt inks MoU with Centre to speed up tap water coverage in rural householdsWhile Union Jal Shakti minister C R Patil said the scheme suffered delays, underutilisation of funds and gaps in implementation in West Bengal during the TMC's rule, Chief Minister Adhikari asserted the "double-engine government" has begun working to bring a visible change in the state.The MoU was signed during a programme attended virtually by Patil, Minister of State in the Jal Shakti Ministry, V Somanna and senior officials.Welcoming the development, CM Adhikari asserted that people in Bengal had long been waiting for the effective implementation of the scheme, and claimed that its progress on the ground had remained limited in the previous years.He claimed that during the previous Assembly, when he was the leader of the opposition, he had travelled extensively across villages and saw that most of the work in the scheme existed only on paper.Under the second phase of the Jal Jeevan Mission, an agreement of ₹39,000 crore has been signed, the chief minister said, adding the goal was to ensure the supply of safe drinking water through household tap connections.He also sought greater Central assistance for irrigation projects, saying the state's financial condition made it difficult to undertake large-scale infrastructure works without support from the Centre.Earlier, Patil said the MoU marked an important step towards transparency and timely service delivery under the Jal Jeevan Mission.He, however, expressed concerns over the pace of its implementation in West Bengal, noting that while tap water coverage in rural households had increased from one per cent in 2019 to 56 per cent now, the state was behind the national average in providing water access to schools and anganwadi centres.West Bengal had received ₹33,363 crore under the scheme, of which ₹13,000 crore had been utilised, while ₹11,670 crore remained unspent, he claimed, indicating a gap in fund utilisation.The Union minister also urged the state government to expedite land allocation for sewage treatment plants along the Ganga and to intensify rainwater harvesting efforts ahead of the monsoon season.Patil said the Union Cabinet approved the MoU, making its implementation mandatory.The Union government launched the Jal Jeevan Mission 2 in 2026 with an outlay of ₹1.69 lakh crore, running till December 2028.This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.