Protected water supply should be provided within 35 years to the entire populations, 53 % of the population to be covered in first 20 years and the remaining in the next 15 years.

Protected water supply in the rural areas being almost unknown, the Committee recommended that the amenity of pure water supply should be extended to every inhabitant of the town or the village within a period of 35 years.

After independence sincere effort to provide safe & potable drinking water to rural population of the State was initiated with the launch of 1st Five Year Plan in the year 1951.It was planned that safe drinking water would be provided in 1000 villages at an estimated cost of Rs. 172.775 lacs. Central Government provided grant in aid to the tune of Rs. 86 lacs and a loan of Rs. 40 lacs for execution of this project. The project envisaged covering 750 villages by constructing Tank Type Stand Posts in adequate numbers near Tube Wells bored for Irrigation purposes in and around these villages. To cover the balance 250 villages, new Tube Wells were proposed to be bored. These works were completed by 31 March 1956.

In sixties UNICEF sponsored three projects of piped water supply for single/group of villages as PILOT PROJECTS. Location of these projects was selected in following villages in district Meerut, Barabanki and Gorakhpur for their being in the western, central and eastern part of the State.

Mohkampur village.

Banki village.

In the same decade of 1960 some more piped water supply schemes for groups of villages in the water scarcity prone rural areas were taken up. In 1970 the GOI launched rural water supply program in a big way. To asses the need, a detailed village wise survey was carried out in the year 1972 in the entire State. Norms were laid down to identify water scarcity villages, which being: • Village in which water source does not exist within 1.6 Km. or up to 15 m. depth in plains and 100 m. elevation in hills.

Village which has water source affected by quality problem such as excess salinity, iron, fluoride, arsenic or other toxic elements.

Village which has water source that causes water borne diseases.

In the survey carried out in 1972, a total number of 35,506 villages were identified as scarcity villages. In a re-survey carried out in 1985 another 42,544 villages were identified as scarcity villages. Thus out of 1,12,566 revenue villages of the State as per 1981 census, 78,050 villages were identified as problem villages which included 66,408 villages of plains and 11,642 villages of Uttaranchal State. Priority was given to cover the scarcity villages first. Development of special type of hand pumps by UNICEF has been a break through in rural water supply. Installation of India Mark-II hand pumps based upon the one developed by UNICEF was introduced in Uttar Pradesh in the decade of 1980.