Skip to main content

Published on: 16/05/2012

India, a leading economic power capable of launching nuclear missiles, is finding it difficult to provide sustainable drinking water and sanitation services. It took the country's apex auditor, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) to point its finger to the shame of slippage.

The CAG has written a very critical audit report [1] about Gujarat's prize winning [2] Water and Sanitation Management Organization (WASMO), which is responsible for implementing rural water supply schemes in the Indian State of Gujarat.

Notwithstanding the commendable achievements of WASMO, the report is a poignant pointer to the serious implementation irregularities in the Indian WASH sector, which are raising concerns about sustainability. The report indicates systemic failure rather than just describing the isolated case of WASMO, which could be rated well in terms of its overall achievements.

The report highlights serious implementation delays and unspent balance. In India there are projects that have a cost escalation of more than 300%. Many projects started more than 3 decades ago are still in the implementation phase. The absence of accountability has resulted in delayed accrual of benefits. While clamouring for more allocation, unutilised sector budgets are common. Utilisation certificates, a prerequisite for release of payments, are at times reduced to standard checklists. Elitist capture is quite common in cast ridden and iniquitous rural communities and public funds are used for private benefits.The report also reveals the inadequate and ineffective systems for planning, monitoring and evaluation of schemes. According to the report, only 17% of completed schemes were audited and there was no follow-up on audit results. Many villages were excluded on grounds of inadequate counterpart funding, as a result of an overriding target driven approach without purposive inclusive designs. The report highlights a dysfunctionality rate of 10%, which is in fact low when compared to national average. There was no structured approach to O&M, effective monitoring and adherence to water quality standards.

Now what are the lessons the CAG report offers to the Indian WASH sector in terms of sustainable service delivery? Most of the water boards and Public Health Engineering Departments (PHEDs) in India are very weak in project planning, design, procurement and construction supervision. Though they have high quality manpower, the incentive systems are perverse. The schemes are implemented by private contractors who deliver what is demanded from them. Secondly, a large part of the rural water supply and sanitation (RWSS) schemes are constructed by public sector agencies and subsequently handed over to communities and rural local government bodies (known as PRIs or Panchayati Raj Institutions), which are inadequately empowered financially, technically and institutionally. A time has come to re-examine the fundamental assumptions of conventionally defined notions of participation and voluntarism. When human behaviour is driven by economic rationality, the sector cannot take an ostrich-like approach of management by voluntarism. At the same time throwing the sector open to the private sector is no panacea as the history of privatisation in the water sector globally has shown. Every citizen knows that left to an inefficient regulatory mechanism, under conditions of supply-demand mismatch, the private sector will degenerate worse than under public provision.

Thirdly, the report corroborates findings of elitist capture of sector benefits raising serious questions of inequity and inclusion. Under the demand driven implementation mode, unless specifically designed safety nets are designed and adhered to, many of the marginalised will be excluded. The situation will be compounded if transparency and process auditing are weak.

The primary task for India is to make water boards and departmental providers autonomous and directly accountable to the clients. They should have the freedom to set tariffs on verifiable economic and performance parameters and to have their own HR management without political intervention. Once the management is accountable to deliver results the sector will see significant sustainability gains. Utilities and elites should not be allowed to appropriate subsidies targeted to disadvantaged citizens.

It is quite surprising that the water boards are still functioning given the constraints and interference that they have to live with. Public sector water utilities have outstanding technical capacities and a huge infrastructure which could be leveraged well if proper accountability and incentive structures are ensured. Financed by governments and driven not by sheer profit motives, they can focus on environment/source sustainability, resource management and conservation, water quality protocols, waste water treatment and sewerage, which are critical for long term sustainability of the sector. The Government of India (GoI) has already embarked on a benchmarking exercise which should be pursued vigorously to support utilities to benchmark performance and client service standards.

In order to address dysfunctionality and slippage, clarity and accountability in O&M is critical. As a large chunk of rural water supply and sanitation systems (RWSS) are micro-mini water supply and hand pump schemes, a ring fenced O&M budget to bridge cost recovery gaps are central to meet both O&M and capital management expenses. Clear roles for the golden triangle of institutions - Local Self Government Institutions (LSGI), User groups, and Post Construction Support Agencies (PCSA) – will ensure sustainable outcomes. There is also an important role for technically capable micro-enterprises run by women / village mechanics providing professional post construction services at commercial rates and which are monitored (in real time) and regulated by local governments. For comprehensive schemes, water boards should strive to improve efficiency (about 40% water produced is unaccounted for water – through technical loss and theft) and provide post construction support. In a large country like India with varying development and governance levels, there is no single magic formula. In a functional democracy, sub-national governments under the right institutional incentives and role clarity can function as effective providers and regulators of WASH service delivery.

In India, sustainable services that last critically rest on source sustainability and regulating competing uses. Water security/safety is easier said than done, however, allocative efficiency, basin planning, conservation and convergence from grassroots level would go a long way. Implementing the provisions of National Rural Water Supply Programme (NRWDP) guidelines related to source sustainability would be a good start. The country has to make a U-turn in focus from storage and distribution to source. The basic responsibility of the State is not to provide piped water supply but to ensure access to safe and adequate water for all forever. Last but not the least; maintaining water quality standards is seriously challenged by the increasing threat of pollution. The country has to move away from the ideal of community water quality monitoring to producer accountability under an effective legal framework. Why can't the State Pollution Control Boards test water and accredit utilities and publish the results?

To sum up the three key factors that could spur positive change in the Indian RWSS sector are: (i) to improve source sustainability, water security and safety, (ii) bring out workable models of post construction support and O&M financing; (iii) bring in improved transparency and accountability that can minimise levels of corruption and address the concerns of open defecation and slippage with a sense of urgency, anger and shame. India has good policies and programmes in place that are facing critical slippages down the implementation lane.

[1] Facilitation of drinking water supply in villages by WASMO. In: CAG, 2012. Audit report (civil), Gujarat for the year 2010-2011. Chapter 1 : performance audit. P. 26-44. New Delhi: Comptroller and Auditor General of India. Available at: <http://bit.ly/LQYGYl>. (Accessed 16 May 2012).

[2] Gurinder Gulati, UN Public Service Award honours water supply initiative in Gujarat, India, UNICEF, 13 May 2009

Dr. V. Kurian Baby, Senior Programme Officer, South Asia & Latin America Team, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre. Former Managing Director of the Kerala Water Authority and Executive Director of the Kerala Rural Water Supply & Sanitation Agency (Jalanidhi).

Cor Dietvorst, Programme Officer, Global Team, Information Specialist and Editor E-Source, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre

Disclaimer

At IRC we have strong opinions and we value honest and frank discussion, so you won't be surprised to hear that not all the opinions on this site represent our official policy.

Back to
the top