I would say both are priorities, govt efforts can't be in sequential priority.

what about villages that already have access to water, should they wait for other things until all villages catchup ?

imagine access to youtube & vast knowledge, may be it will spur the commom folk to take matter into their own hands and improve their lives.

>what about villages that already have access to water, should they wait for other things until all villages catchup ?

It would be more appropriate to broaden the scale and raise this question in relation to the whole world, not just the other villages.

I would say providing clean water + food should always be prioritized over internet access

That's not how government priorities work.

Should we cancel NASA budget because there were homeless people? Should we reduce public library budget because of people are suffering due to police brutality?

Every section of government is different with its own budget and goals, because a nation can move forward on all fronts.

Nobody is saying that providing clean water is not a priority. Provide fast internet is just a new priority on table. it does not necessarily mean reducing priority for other items.

The government is a huge organization capable of prioritizing multiple workstreams.

Yes, but providing basic food and water would be cheaper than internet access, and also more important for survival...

I wish I had that too.

You have food though right? 3,000 children in India die every day from poor diet related illness. I'm sure they would prioritize food over internet.

https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-die-due-to-hunger-in-I...

How many children die from poor diet related illness in your society? And your point is what exactly?

bravo :clap:!

clean drinking water is a much more challenging problem. This is not merely the Govts. fault. People do not want to share existing water with other people and as economy is highly dependent on agriculture groundwater depletion is a serious issue. Most water in India (except Northern part) comes during the 4 months of monsoon. Large scale irrigation projects have a lot of environmental hurdles to overcome here unlike China yet quite a few of them are being worked on rapidly. Most of central India is a plateau and one ambitious plan involved pumping excess flood water in North India during monsoon onto the plateau and transporting it to the South. People are working on many different solutions to the problems as can be done practically.

> Large scale irrigation projects have a lot of environmental hurdles to overcome here unlike China

Which is a good thing in my opinion. These projects have to be scrutinized thread bare to ensure that they don't degrade the environment. Just look at what is happening in China with the Three Gorges Dam and the flooding of the Yangtze river. People who had land, houses on either side of the river are seeing lands washed away by these floods. Millions were evacuated. Such projects, though provide short term economic benefit, might end up harming the entire ecosystem around it.

I am not saying that you shouldn't do anything about it. Just that it should be done after careful scrutiny. We are not a dictatorship. That is both a boon and a curse. A curse because we can't be as fast as China is in taking decisions. But a boon because we do whatever we do with as much consensus as possible. By not negating stakeholders and by trying to bring as many of them as possible to the table.

https://jaljeevanmission.gov.in/content/about-jjm is targeted by 2024.

dashboard: https://ejalshakti.gov.in/WaterDashboard/HouseHoldConnection...