Overview

• The Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation ordered Chief Secretaries on 10 October to file detailed reports by 20 October on actions taken over Jal Jeevan Mission irregularities.
• States must specify disciplinary steps against Public Health Engineering Department officials, including suspensions, removals and FIRs tied to poor-quality work or financial lapses.
• Reports must list penalties, blacklisting decisions, FIRs and amounts recovered from contractors and Third Party Inspection Agencies.
• Each FIR case requires a one-page summary, and states must conduct ground-truth verification of dashboard entries, quantify any financial impact and outline recovery plans.
• The escalation in oversight follows a Cabinet Secretary–chaired review and 100-plus nodal team inspections, with an earlier investigation reporting Rs 16,839 crore in cost escalation across 14,586 schemes.