The Hindu Business Line : Rural water supply

A new study on “Review of Effectiveness of Rural Water Supply Schemes in India” by the World Bank is a timely exercise in providing pointers to the effectiveness or otherwise of the current plethora of rural water schemes.

G. Srinivasan

Rural India faces very many challenges, the foremost being lack of adequate provision for clean drinking water, sanitation and a clean environment for a decent standard of living.

There is no dearth of schemes, either from the Government of India or state governments, to take water to the villages even as the Eleventh Plan document has highlighted the main problems — ranging from sustainability of water availability a nd supply, poor water quality, centralised versus decentralised approaches to financing of operation and maintenance (O&M) cost.

A new study on “Review of Effectiveness of Rural Water Supply Schemes in India” by the World Bank is a timely exercise in providing a clue to the effectiveness or otherwise of the current plethora of rural water schemes. The Government of India’s major intervention in water scheme began in 1972-73 through the Accelerated Rural Water Supply Programme (ARWSP) for assisting States/Union Territories to speed up the coverage of drinking water supply.

This programme was subsequently given a mission approach with the launch of the Technology Mission on Drinking Water and Related Water Management. This was rechristened Rajiv Gandhi National Drinking Water Mission (RGNDWM) in 1991-92. In 1999, a separate Department of Drinking Water Supply was formed under the Ministry of Rural Development to give thrust to rural water supply as well as sanitation.

The Bharat Nirman Programme of the UPA has nearly doubled the fund available for the sector through ARWSP. This is because States have been expressing constraints in providing adequate matching share for availing ARWSP funds. The Department of Drinking Water Supply has suggested that funding pattern of the programme should change from the extant 50:50 (Centre: State) to 75:25 for non special category States and 90:10 for Special Category States.

Between the traditional target-driven (supply-driven) programmes being operated by the Government and the more recent model of decentralised user community-driven approaches (demand-driven), the Planning Commission has noted that the involvement of the community in the monitoring of the water supply works should be made a primary condition for release of funds for completed work.

Findings of survey

Looking at various facets of rural water supply, including flow of funds and expenditure incurred, performance of schemes, cost of supply, household coping strategies and costs, as well as household willingness to pay and affordability, the World Bank study responds to these concerns through a survey covering about 40,000 rural households and 600 rural drinking water schemes across 10 States in the country.

The States covered are Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal. The Bank’s survey data reveal some serious inadequacies in the rural water supply schemes, while the quality of water supplied fails to meet safe drinking water standards set out by the Central Pollution Control Board of India in a sizeable proportion of cases. About 30 per cent households are using multiple schemes to meet their water needs. The average coping cost (including time spent) on water by a rural household is Rs 81 per month. Out of this, water charges levied by different governments vary between Rs 20 and Rs 25 a month. It is small wonder that the Willingness to Pay survey shows that households are quite open to spending up to Rs 60 a month on just operating and maintaining a water scheme, provided they are assured of a regular and reliable supply.

According to the survey, affordable payment for piped water varies across States. The monthly affordable payment per household for a private connection is assessed at Rs 30-40 in Orissa and Tamil Nadu, Rs 30-45 in Andhra Pradesh, Rs 30-50 in West Bengal, Rs 50-60 in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Uttarakhand, Rs 50-70 in Uttar Pradesh, Rs 90-110 in Kerala and Rs 100-130 in Punjab.

The monthly affordable payment per household from standposts is in the range of Rs 11-13 per month in Uttarkhand and Rs 15-20 per month in Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal. Affordable payment is relatively higher at Rs 20-25 per month in Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. The level is still higher in Kerala (Rs 330-35 per month) and Punjab (Rs 40-50 per month).

Interestingly, the cost of improved water supply in rural areas is within affordable limits. Almost all households using public hand-pumps could afford to pay Rs 5 per month to cover the cost of maintenance of the hand-pumps and almost all households using stand-posts in piped water schemes could afford to pay Rs 10 per month to cover the cost of proper maintenance of piped water schemes.

To fully recover the O&M cost of typical piped water schemes, it would be necessary to charge private connection users at the rate of about Rs 5 per month. For new schemes, a capital contribution of Rs 600-1,500 would be necessary, the Bank study said, adding that most non-BPL (below poverty line) households could afford to pay this sum.

Illuminating contrast

For the Central and State governments that run multiple water supply schemes in rural areas, the study brings out an illuminating contrast between the schemes operated by them and the decentralised ones. Thus, the average level of institutional cost in supply-driven programme is 24 per cent, which is much higher when compared to demand-driven programmes where average institutional costs are at 11 per cent.

It is also instructive to note that wider inter-State variations in institutional cost of ‘supply-driven’ programmes (15 to 50 per cent of the expenditure) bear out that significant reduction in institutional cost is possible. It further points out that the total cost of piped water scheme per kilo litre (KL) of water consumed (including capital and O&M costs of main and supplementary government schemes and household coping cost) is high with an average about Rs 38 per KL for ‘supply driven’ schemes, compared to an economic cost of about Rs 16 per KL for a good performing scheme.

The schemes under demand-driven programmes have distinctly lower cost of Rs 26 per KL as compared to schemes under supply-driven programmes, and are generally more efficient as they are cost-effective.

What is particularly distressing is that despite the relatively low institutional cost and other known advantages of demand-driven programmes, the share of demand-driven programmes in the overall flow of funds for rural water supply remains minuscule at 10 per cent.

Elaborating on this point, it highlighted how Rs 100 is spent for a typical supply-driven and demand-driven programme and found that around Rs 50 trickles down to the beneficiaries in a supply-driven programme as compared to Rs 75 that trickles down to the beneficiaries in a demand-driven programme.

Considering the significance of the demand-driven schemes, decentralisation and involvement of community participation should be the focus of a raft of rural water supply scheme, particularly when the delivery of results in such an approach is beneficial to villagers.

It also rightly says that merely adopting the decentralisation agenda could not by itself improve the sustainability and viability of the various schemes. Rather, there is need to foster mechanisms for enhancing ‘accountability’ in service delivery, including distinct roles and responsibilities at the State, district and the Gram Panchayat level. This would entail separation of policy formulation and regulation from ownership and maintenance of assets.

Ultimately, it is not mere statistics of how many habitations in rural regions are covered by the innumerable number of rural water supply schemes being implemented by the Centre or States that is important as much as the efficiency in delivery of services by the schemes and how effectively they are decentralised and driven by demand from community participants.

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