Mahoba/Banda/Jhansi, April 17 -- Seven years after the Har Ghar Jal Yojana under the Jal Jeevan Mission, residents of several villages in the semi-arid Bundelkhand are awaiting piped water supply, though tap connections were provided to many households in the region. Across the region, while many targets have been met, faulty execution has plagued the scheme. For instance, plastic pipes can be seen jutting out of the ground near the doors of 35 houses at Karhara village in Mahoba district, but water has not flowed from the pipes there. At some spots, the pipes are buried under heaps of mud and sand. It is because of scenarios like this that the Har Ghar Jal scheme is under the scanner with lawmakers from both the ruling BJP and the Opposition Samajwadi Party raising the issue of irregularities. The scheme was launched under the Jal Jeevan Mission in 2019 to supply piped water to approximately 2.67 crore rural households in Uttar Pradesh. The issue surfaced in early February after Brijbhushan Rajput, the BJP MLA from Charkhari, along with local gram pradhans and party supporters blocked Uttar Pradesh Jal Shakti minister Swatantra Dev Singh's convoy on the highway, when Singh was returning from an event, to draw his attention to the problem faced by people in villages where roads had been dug up to lay pipelines. After the incident, Swatantra Dev Singh called a meeting to review the Jal Jeevan Mission's progress in the Bundelkhand and Vindhya regions of the state. Countering the lawmakers' allegations, the Jal Shakti minister asserted that except some villages, the households in a majority of the villages are receiving water supply. "We will ensure water supply in all the rural households," he added. P4...