Sector C :- Implementation and Execution of Swajaldhara Water Supply Scheme

Swajaldhara Water Supply Scheme is a scheme which requires 90% Govt. of India share and 10% beneficiaries contribution of total capital cost of implementation of the scheme. The strategies of rural water supply programme hitterto adopted revolve around the basic promise that provision of safe drinking water is the responsibility of the Government. Increase outlay by the Government, particularly in the last decade and a change in technology focus to hand pumps fitted on tube wells and bore wells, had resulted in an impressive increase in the total rural water supply coverage. However, the availability of potable drinking water in rural areas, especially during summer months is still not satisfactory.

Water is today perceived by the rural public as a social right to be provided free by the Government, rather than as a scarce resource which must be managed locally as a socio-economic good in order to ensure its effective use.

This perception has grown out of the fact that present rural water supply systems are designed and executed by the department and imposed on end users.

Demand preferences of the people are not taken into account while executing the schemes. In other words, rural water supply programme till now has been adopting a supply driven approach. Experience has shown that the present approach has led to the failure of a large number of water supply schemes due to poor operation and maintenance. Now that substantial investment has been made and huge infrastructure and systems built up, it is paramount that they are made functional to a great degree to acheive sustainability. There is a general recognition that a transformation from a target based supply driven approach which pays little attention to the actual practices and preferences of the end users, to a demand based approach where users get the service they want and are willing to pay for is urgently required. Implementation of a participatory demand driven approach will ensure that the public obtain the level of service they desire and can afford to pay. Further cost recovery of operations and maintenance and relacement cost will ensure the financial viabilityand sustainability of the schemes.

It is possible to institutionalise community based rural drinking water supply programme if the local communities are empowered to generate resources and are trained and equipped to plan, implement, use, maintain and replace water supply schemes themselves in co-ordination with the Government agencies. Development of villages is not the responsibility of the Government only. It is also not possible for the Governments alone to accomplish it all by themselves. The entire society has to come forward to help itself in the development process and the community must become the principal stakeholder. Swajaldhara was launched in the year 2002, meant for taking up only simple and basically community oriented schemes.

In BTC areas Swajaldhara Scheme could not have been materialized till August/2005 due to non- existence of PRI set up. Several notification have been formulated and subsequently the final set- up has been notified on 16/11/2005. Thereafter the Governing body of Swajaldhara water supply & Sanitation Mission was formed in the composition of "BTC WATER SUPPLY & SANITATION MISSION" in concurrence with state sanitation Mission. After BTC notification & governing body formation the various committees like DWSC (District Water & Sanitation Committee) in each district and VWSC (Village Water & Sanitation Committee) in each BTC Constituency has been formed.

Though the Swajaldhara is a 5 (five) year programme, the BTC Government got only last two financial years (05-06 and 06-07).