The International Decade for Safe Water Supply and Sanitation was declared in the late seventies. It's aim was to provide clean drinking water and sanitation facilities to all by the year 2000 A.D. The National Water Supply and Sanitation Programme was launched by the Government of India as part of the Health Plan in 1954. Priority provisions were inbuilt into successive 5 year plans. In subsequent years several programmes were launched by the Government for provision of drinking water supply in rural areas. These included :
- Village Water Supply Programme
- Accelerated Rural ate; Supply Programme
- Component of Minimum Needs Programme
During the Seventh Five Year Plan the aim was to provide adequate drinking water facilities to the entire population. This was in keeping with the goal laid down for the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade. The Technology Mission on Drinking Water in Villages and Related Water Management was launched in 1986.
The main aim of the Technology Mission is "to improve the performance and cost effectiveness of the on-going programmes in the field of rural drinking water supply so as to ensure the availability of an adequate quantity of drinking water of acceptable quality and to ensure sustained availability of such water on a long- term basis." The emphasis is on finding practical and effective solutions to problems associated with the supply of safe drinking water in rural areas. It is obvious that those solutions must be inexpensive too.
Our experience with these programmes, however, has shown that even when money, skill and all the goodwill in the world are available, simply providing a village with water taps and latrines may not be enough. If poverty is such that simple survival is a struggle, the social organisation needed to keep a sophisticated water supply system working is unlikely to exist.
Many development experts now believe that success in supplying clean water to rural communities depends on the design and availability of simple, cheap and reliable hand pumps to bring ground water to the surface. Too many villages,remain idle awaiting repair. The aim is to design a pump that could be maintained by a villager appointed to take care of it using just one spanner. New designs and more stringent tests, together with the use of new plastic components may bring success nearer.
But, if rural villages are to depend on pumping ground water to the surface, more attention will need to be paid to keeping underground sources free of pollution. The main attraction of using ground water rather than surface water is that it is much less likely to need treatment before it can be used for drinking purposes.
We have so far discussed features of programmes aimed at improving/providing water supply with particular emphasis on rural areas. Now let us turn our attention to sanitation programmes.
The Central Rural Sanitation Programme (CRSP) was launched in 1986-87. It was sponsored by the Central Government. Implementation is cared out at the State Union Territories level for improving the sanitation facilities.
The major thrust of the programme is the construction of sanitary latrines for individual households. This was expected to ensure privacy for women, improve the quality of life and help in overall improvement in health . (You are already aware of the linkage between adequate sanitation and health). In recent years, proposals have been made to construct village sanitation complexes comprising sanitary latrines, hand pumps and biogas plants for utilisation of waste. Separate bathing, washing and sanitary facilities for women are being envisaged. In addition a cluster of households (i.e. households close to each other but separated from other such clusters) are to be provided individual latrine facilities . Details about some community level latrines are given in Annexure 1.
Voluntary organisations could play a vital role in the sphere of water supply as well as sanitation. The following case study talks about some innovative schemes launched by voluntary organisations in our country. Self-help and community participation are key themes as you will find.
The Handpump Based Rural Water Supply Programmes : A Case Study In any developing society, women and their work are largely taken for granted. They are seldom regarded as primary wage earners; even after they get married, they are never seen as contributing more than supplements to the family budget. Because development, education and training usually bypasses them, they are never considered as anything more than home makers and child bearers. Here are examples of how enlightened women made a difference to water supply schemes.
An NGO group working with Indo- Dutch participation first experimented with training women as 'handpump mistries' under the Ganga Action Plan in Mirzapur, U.P. The workshop organisers realised that unless the women in the target community were empowered to take decisions relating to water management, change would be slow in coming.
The Mirzapur experiment also successfully overcame the resistance to such a novel idea from the menfolk in the community. This experiment showed that acquiring new skills had invested these women with a tremendous amount of self- confidence and sense of purpose. Gradually they became more assertive and started demanding the right to choose the sites for installation of handpumps.
Moreover, menfolk in the community also gradually got involved either as supporters or critics, though more of the latter category initially, The entire social life in the village slowly began to be geared around the handpump, literally, making it a successful community participation exercise. The gender bias and power structure within the community had to readjust themselves to this new development.
There was a benefit of rise in demand for literacy. As such, there is a need to integrate more and more related issues which affect daily lives of millions of our people and make them aware that a solution is within their power. Linked to safe water was skills building and literacy, which could be further extended to health care and sanitation. Through these experiments certain points have emerged clearly which could be adopted for maximum impact of social /development programmes. Awareness building and training could be undertaken by the NGO sector through traditional and low cost media while the Government's role should be that of a facilitator providing infrastructure and some initial support. The community should be taken into full confidence for ensuring success in any of these projects.
The handpump based rural water supply programme in India has come a long way since its commencement in the early 70's. An impressive 2.2 million India Mark I1 deep bore handpumps have been installed across the country so far providing water to some 500 million people. While the coverage of villages provided with this facility is quite impressive, we still find that at least 10-15 per cent of the 2.2 million pumps breakdown at any given time. This has led to a large population (about 55 million) not having the benefit of this facility. The State Governments have made efforts to improve the maintenance situation by means of different strategies both through their own infrastructure as well as through other channels. handpumps. A rough estimate of the expenditure, assuming an average of With the above constraints the Central and the State Governments have been strategies are a concerted effort :
- for the transfer of accountability for maintenance to local bodies/user groups ;
- to develop skills for maintenance.
Some efforts have been made in this direction by developing systems for handpump maintenance through user involvement in management and upkeep. This has also been made possible by simplifying the handpump technology and correspondingly reducing the skills requirement for maintenance. Women who are traditionally the water managers, are the mainstay in this endeavor.
Learning from the Mirzapur experiment, the concept of women's involvement in handpump maintenance at the district level was first tried out in Rajasthan. Some of the districts of Rajasthan have endemic guineaworm problems and as a part of efforts for eradication of the disease, the Safe Water and Community Health (SWACH) programme was launched in 1986. After the safe water outreach using India Mark I1 had made an initial impact in the villages, it was realised that the problem of maintenance of handpumps had to be tackled to keep up the progress. So the experiment of training the women was tried out in Banswara district in 1988. The experiment was a great success.
While the Government department was responsible for hardware installation and provision of spares, the trained women were hired by the Panchayat Samiti on a contractual basis and paid for the work done. NGOs like Aastha and Seva Mandir were involved in the training of the mechanics and social animators (who may also be village mechanics). While women mechanics maintained the handpumps, the animators were supposed to go from village to village telling people about Guinea worms, not to drink water from step wells and to put medicine in the wells.
The Banda district in U.P. is another interesting case. It has a stretch of hostile dacoit infested land and any attempt at development is met with stiff resistance. Added to this, the natural terrain is rocky and water is scarce. There was always much antagonism between the local government department Jal Nigam and the people. In 1991, 250 women gathered for a demonstration in front of the Jal Nigam office demanding safe water. The women broke, 'matkas' and shouted slogans such as 'paani -do bhai paani do, varna ghagar phod do'. The situation had improved by 1992. On the women's day, the slogan shifted to 'ek haath mey chakla belan, ek haath may tool kit lipter'. (in one hand cooking tools, in the other, the handpump repairing kit).
Mahila Samakhya, a project of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, working in 120 villages in the district has worked as an NGO at the grassroot level to bring about this unbelievable yet dramatic transformation . Their main platform was women's empowerment but it has gained momentum through crucial issues relating to their everyday life like water management. Literacy has been an important offshoot. Their novel approach to motivate the community through group dynamic session. and in a entertainment mode are a treat to watch and have proved to be successful.
Another example is from Midnapore in West Bengal. This is the largest district in India with no dearth of surface water but community mobilisation was needed for creating awareness regarding safe water. There have been about 15 lakh deaths reported due to diarrhoea and the Government was forced to give it priority in 1989 and launch diarrhoea control projects (CDDWATSAN - Control of Diarrhoea1 Diseases through Water and Sanitation). Under this scheme the aim was to provide information on : a ) personal hygiene, b) safe water and c) ORS. An Intensive Sanitation Project (ISP) was undertaken in this district through the Ramakrishna Mission Lok Shiksha Parishad which has the confidence of the people. They in turn organised the existing Youth Clubs of the villages into cluster groups. The youth Clubs in this part of the country had always been active and involved in organising cultural activities such as Jatras and the popular Durga
Puja. By actively involving them with the developmental projects envisaged for a block or village the Ramakrishna Mission has given them a new sense of purpose. The fact that these clubs had infrastructure, that they were operated by local leaders of the community, that they were led by some far sighted intellectuals in the community accelerated the success story and,what resulted was an almost perfect model for community participation in rural development achieved with little effort.
An innovative scheme was worked out. For every forty sanitary latrines constructed, the villagers were to get one TARA handpump as an award. In return the villagers were expected to :
- Form a WATSAN (Water and Sanitation) Committee for every forty families:
- Identify two women caretakers and
- Pay Rs. 500 jointly for the construction of the handpump platform plus fifty paise per family for maintenance.
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