Water supply and sanitation in India

India India India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world... : Water and Sanitation

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! style="text-align:center; background:lightblue;" colspan="3"|Data
|-
! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Access to improved source of water (Urban/Rural/Total)
|valign="top"| 96%/84%/88% (2008)
|-
! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Access to improved sanitation (Urban/Rural/Total)
|valign="top"| 54%/21%/31% (2008)
|-
! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Average urban water use (liter/capita/day)
|valign="top"| 150 (1999)
|-
! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Average urban water and sewer bill for 20m3

Cubic metre

The cubic metre is the SI derived unit of volume. It is the volume of a cube with edges one metre in length. An alternative name, which allowed a different usage with metric prefixes, was the stère...

|valign="top"| 2 (2007)
|-
! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Share of household metering

Water metering

Water metering is the process of measuring water use through water meters.- Prevalence :Water metering is common for residential and commercial drinking water supply in many countries, as well as for industrial self-supply with water. However, it is less common in irrigated agriculture, which is...

|valign="top"| 55% in urban areas (1999)
|-
! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Share of collected wastewater treated

Wastewater Treatment

Wastewater treatment may refer to:* Sewage treatment* Industrial wastewater treatment...

|valign="top"| 27% (2003)
|-
! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Annual investment in water supply and sanitation
|valign="top"| 5 / capita
|-
! style="text-align:center; background:lightblue;" colspan="3"|Institutions
|-
! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Decentralization to municipalities
|valign="top"| Partial
|-
! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|National water and sanitation company
|valign="top"| No
|-
! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Water and sanitation regulator
|valign="top"| No
|-
! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Responsibility for policy setting
|valign="top"| Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation; Ministry of Rural Development
|-
! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Sector law
|valign="top"| No
|-
! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Number of urban service providers
|valign="top"| 3,255 (1991)
|-
! style="text-align:left; vertical-align:top;"|Number of rural service providers
|valign="top"| about 100,000
|}

Water supply and sanitation in India continue to be inadequate, despite longstanding efforts by the various levels of government and communities at improving coverage. The level of investment in water and sanitation

Sanitation

Sanitation is the hygienic means of promoting health through prevention of human contact with the hazards of wastes. Hazards can be either physical, microbiological, biological or chemical agents of disease. Wastes that can cause health problems are human and animal feces, solid wastes, domestic...

, albeit low by international standards, has increased during the 2000s. Access has also increased significantly. For example, in 1980 rural sanitation coverage was estimated at 1% and reached 21% in 2008. Also, the share of Indians with access to improved sources of water has increased significantly from 72% in 1990 to 88% in 2008. At the same time, local government institutions in charge of operating and maintaining the infrastructure are seen as weak and lack the financial resources to carry out their functions. In addition, no major city in India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

is known to have a continuous water supply

Water supply

Water supply is the provision of water by public utilities, commercial organisations, community endeavours or by individuals, usually via a system of pumps and pipes...

and an estimated 72% of Indians still lack access to improved sanitation facilities.

A number of innovative approaches to improve water supply and sanitation have been tested in India, in particular in the early 2000s. These include demand-driven approaches in rural water supply since 1999, community-led total sanitation

Community-led total sanitation

Community-led Total Sanitation is an innovative methodology for mobilising communities to completely eliminate open defecation . Communities are facilitated to conduct their own appraisal and analysis of open defecation and take their own action to become ODF .At the heart of CLTS lies the...

, a public-private partnerships to improve the continuity of urban water supply in Karnataka, and the use of micro-credit to women in order to improve access to water.

Access

	Urban	Rural	Total
Improved water supply	96%	84%	88%
Improved sanitation	54%	21%	31%

In 2008, 88% of the population in India had access to an improved water source

Improved water source

According to the Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation by the World Health Organization and UNICEF the following are considered as "improved" water sources:* household connections* public standpipes* boreholes* protected dug wells...

, but only 31% had access to improved sanitation

Improved sanitation

According to the Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation by the World Health Organization and UNICEF the following are considered as "improved" sanitation:* connection to a public sewer* connection to a septic system* pour-flush latrine...

. In rural areas, where 72% of India’s population lives, the respective shares are 84% for water and only 21% for sanitation

Sanitation

. In urban areas, 96% had access to an improved water source and 54% to improved sanitation. Access has improved substantially since 1990 when it was estimated to stand at 72% for water and 18% for sanitation.

According to Indian norms, access to improved water supply

Water supply

Water supply is the provision of water by public utilities, commercial organisations, community endeavours or by individuals, usually via a system of pumps and pipes...

exists if at least 40 liters/capita/day of safe drinking water are provided within a distance of 1.6 km or 100 meter of elevation difference, to be relaxed as per field conditions. There should be at least one pump per 250 persons.

Service quality

Water and sanitation service quality in India is generally poor, although there has been some limited progress concerning continuity of supply in urban areas and access to sanitation in rural areas.

Water supply

Challenges. None of the 35 Indian cities with a population of more than one million distribute water for more than a few hours per day, despite generally sufficient infrastructure. Owing to inadequate pressure people struggle to collect water even when it is available. According to the World Bank

World Bank

The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...

, none have performance indicators that compare with average international standards. A 2007 study by the Asian Development Bank showed that in 20 cities the average duration of supply was only 4.3 hours per day. No city had continuous supply. The longest duration of supply was 12 hours per day in Chandigarh

Chandigarh

Chandigarh is a union territory of India that serves as the capital of two states, Haryana and Punjab. The name Chandigarh translates as "The Fort of Chandi". The name is from an ancient temple called Chandi Mandir, devoted to the Hindu goddess Chandi, in the city...

, and the lowest was 0.3 hours per day in Rajkot. In Delhi

Delhi

Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...

residents receive water only a few hours per day because of inadequate management of the distribution system. This results in contaminated water and forces households to complement a deficient public water service at prohibitive 'coping' costs; the poor suffer most from this situation. For example, according to a 1996 survey households in Delhi spent an average of per year in time and money to cope with poor service levels. This is more than three times as much as the 2001 water bill of about 18 per year of a Delhi household that uses 20 cubic meters per month.

Achievements. Jamshedpur, a city in Jharkhand

Jharkhand

Jharkhand is a state in eastern India. It was carved out of the southern part of Bihar on 15 November 2000. Jharkhand shares its border with the states of Bihar to the north, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh to the west, Orissa to the south, and West Bengal to the east...

with 573,000 inhabitants, provided 25% of its residents with continuous water supply in 2009. Navi Mumbai

Navi Mumbai

Navi Mumbai is a Planned Satellite City on the west coast of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It was developed in 1972 as a twin city of Mumbai, and is the largest planned city on the planet, with under the jurisdiction of the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation and a total area of . Navi Mumbai...

, a planned city with more than 1m inhabitants, has achieved continuous supply for about half its population as of January 2009. Badlapur

Badlapur

Badlapur, is one of the fastest growing towns in Mumbai Conurbation, India.Due to the population growth in the nearby cities, many people working in Mumbai have moved to Badlapur for affordable real estate prices, pleasant weather, beautiful location and quiet neighborhoods along with a proximity...

, another city in the Mumbai Conurbation with a population of 140,000, has achieved continuous supply in 3 out of 10 operating zones, covering 30% of its population. Thiruvananthapuram

Thiruvananthapuram

Thiruvananthapuram , formerly known as Trivandrum, is the capital of the Indian state of Kerala and the headquarters of the Thiruvananthapuram District. It is located on the west coast of India near the extreme south of the mainland...

, the capital of Kerala state with a population of 745,000 in 2001, is probably the largest Indian city that enjoys continuous water supply.

Sanitation

Most Indians depend on on-site sanitation facilities. Recently, access to on-site sanitation have increased in both rural and urban areas. In rural areas, total sanitation has been successful (see below). In urban areas, a good practice is the Slum Sanitation Program in Mumbai that has provided access to sanitation for a quarter million slum dwellers. Sewerage, where available, is often in a bad state. In Delhi the sewerage network has lacked maintenance over the years and overflow of raw sewage in open drains is common, due to blockage, settlements and inadequate pumping capacities. The capacity of the 17 existing wastewater treatment plants in Delhi is adequate to cater a daily production of waste water of less than 50% of the drinking water produced. Of the 2.5 Billion people in the world that defecate openly, some 665 million live in India. This is of greater concern as 88% of deaths from diarrhea occur because of unsafe water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene.

Environment

As of 2003, it was estimated that only 27% of India's wastewater

Wastewater

Wastewater is any water that has been adversely affected in quality by anthropogenic influence. It comprises liquid waste discharged by domestic residences, commercial properties, industry, and/or agriculture and can encompass a wide range of potential contaminants and concentrations...

was being treated, with the remainder flowing into rivers, canals, groundwater or the sea., For example, the sacred Ganges river is infested with diseases and in some places "the Ganges becomes black and septic. Corpses, of semi-cremated adults or enshrouded babies, drift slowly by.". NewsWeek describes Delhi's sacred Yamuna River as "a putrid ribbon of black sludge" where fecal bacteria is 10,000 over safety limits despite a 15-year program to address the problem. Cholera

Cholera

Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...

epidemics are not unknown.

Health impact

The lack of adequate sanitation and safe water has significant negative health impacts including diarrhea

Diarrhea

Diarrhea , also spelled diarrhoea, is the condition of having three or more loose or liquid bowel movements per day. It is a common cause of death in developing countries and the second most common cause of infant deaths worldwide. The loss of fluids through diarrhea can cause dehydration and...

, referred to by travelers as the "Delhi Belly", and experienced by about 10 million visitors annually. While most visitors to India recover quickly and otherwise receive proper care, the World Health Organisation estimated that around 700,000 Indians die each year from diarrhea. The dismal working conditions of sewer workers are another concern. A survey of the working conditions of sewage workers in Delhi showed that most of them suffer from chronic diseases, respiratory problems, skin disorders, allergies, headaches and eye infections.

Water supply and water resources

Depleting ground water table

Water table

The water table is the level at which the submarine pressure is far from atmospheric pressure. It may be conveniently visualized as the 'surface' of the subsurface materials that are saturated with groundwater in a given vicinity. However, saturated conditions may extend above the water table as...

and deteriorating ground water quality are threatening the sustainability of both urban and rural water supply in many parts of India. The supply of cities that depend on surface water is threatened by pollution, increasing water scarcity and conflicts among users. For example, Bangalore

Bangalore

Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...

depends to a large extent on water pumped since 1974 from the Kaveri river, whose waters are disputed between the states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. As in other Indian cities, the response to water scarcity is to transfer more water over large distances at high costs. In the case of Bangalore, the Kaveri Stage IV project, Phase II, includes the supply of 500,000 cubic meter of water per day over a distance of 100 km, thus increasing the city's supply by two thirds.

Responsibility for water supply and sanitation

Water supply and sanitation is a State responsibility under the Indian Constitution. States may give the responsibility to the Panchayati Raj

Panchayati Raj

The panchayat raj is a South Asian political system mainly in India, Pakistan, and Nepal. "Panchayat" literally means assembly of five wise and respected elders chosen and accepted by the local community. Traditionally, these assemblies settled disputes between individuals and villages...

Institutions (PRI) in rural areas or municipalities in urban areas, called Urban Local Bodies (ULB). At present, states generally plan, design and execute water supply schemes (and often operate them) through their State Departments (of Public Health Engineering or Rural Development Engineering) or State Water Boards.

Highly centralized decision-making and approvals at the state level, which are characteristic of the Indian civil service, affect the management of water supply and sanitation services. For example, according to the World Bank in the state of Punjab the process of approving designs is centralized with even minor technical approvals reaching the office of chief engineers. A majority of decisions are made in a very centralized manner at the headquarters. In 1993 the Indian constitution and relevant state legislations were amended in order to decentralize certain responsibilities, including water supply and sanitation, to municipalities. Since the assignment of responsibilities to municipalities is a state responsibility, different states have followed different approaches. According to a Planning Commission report of 2003 there is a trend to decentralize capital investment to engineering departments at the district

Districts of India

A district is an administrative division of an Indian state or territory. Districts are further subdivided, in some cases into Sub-Divisions, and otherwise directly into tehsils or talukas.District officials include:...

level and operation and maintenance to district and gram panchayat levels.

Policy and regulation

The responsibility for water supply and sanitation at the central and state level is shared by various Ministries. At the central level, The Ministry of Rural Development is responsible for rural water supply through its Department of Drinking Water Supply (DDWS) and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation is responsible for urban water supply. However, except for the National Capital Territory of Delhi and other Union Territories, the central Ministries only have an advisory capacity and a very limited role in funding. Sector policy thus is a prerogative of state governments.

Service provision

Urban areas. Institutional arrangements for water supply and sanitation in Indian cities vary greatly. Typically, a state-level agency is in charge of planning and investment, while the local government (Urban Local Bodies) is in charge of operation and maintenance. Some of the largest cities have created municipal water and sanitation utilities that are legally and financially separated from the local government. However, these utilities remain weak in terms of financial capacity. In spite of decentralization, ULBs remain dependent on capital subsidies from state governments. Tariffs are also set by state governments, which often even subsidize operating costs. Furthermore, when no separate utility exists there is no separation of accounts for different activities within a municipality. Some states and cities have non-typical institutional arrangements. For example, in Rajasthan

Rajasthan

Rājasthān the land of Rajasthanis, , is the largest state of the Republic of India by area. It is located in the northwest of India. It encompasses most of the area of the large, inhospitable Great Indian Desert , which has an edge paralleling the Sutlej-Indus river valley along its border with...

the sector is more centralized and the state government is also in charge of operation and maintenance, while in Mumbai

Mumbai

Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...

the sector is more decentralized and local government is also in charge of planning and investment.

Private sector participation. The private sector plays a limited, albeit recently increasing role in operating and maintaining urban water systems on behalf of ULBs. For example, the Jamshedpur Utilities & Services Company (Jusco), a subsidiary of Tata Steel

Tata Steel

Tata Steel is a multinational steel company headquartered in Jamshedpur, India and part of Tata Group. It is the world's seventh-largest steel company, with an annual crude steel capacity of 31 million tonnes, and the largest private-sector steel company in India measured by domestic production...

, has a lease contract for Jamshedpur(Jharkhand), a management contract in Haldia

Haldia

Haldia has a typical moderate climate with winter temperatures ranging from a low of around 7 degrees Celsius to a high of 22 degrees Celsius. Winters are chilly and is when the residents hold the Haldia Utsav festival. Summers can be very hot and humid. Usual summer temperatures in May, the...

(West Bengal), another contract in Mysore(Karnataka) and since 2007 a contract for the reduction of non-revenue water

Non-revenue water

Non revenue water is water that has been produced and is “lost” before it reaches the customer. Losses can be real losses or apparent losses . High levels of NRW are detrimental to the financial viability of water utilities, as well to the quality of water itself...

in parts of Bhopal (Madhya Pradhesh). The French water company Veolia won a management contract in three cities in Karnataka

Karnataka

Karnataka , the land of the Kannadigas, is a state in South West India. It was created on 1 November 1956, with the passing of the States Reorganisation Act and this day is annually celebrated as Karnataka Rajyotsava...

in 2005. In 2002 a consortium including Thames Water

Thames Water

Thames Water Utilities Ltd, known as Thames Water, is the private utility company responsible for the public water supply and waste water treatment in large parts of Greater London, the Thames Valley, Surrey, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Kent, and some other areas of in the United Kingdom...

won a pilot contract covering 40,000 households to reduce non-revenue water in parts of Bangalore

Bangalore

, funded by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation

Japan Bank for International Cooperation

The , also known by its acronym, JBIC, is a Japanese public financial institution and export credit agency, and was created on October 1, 1999, through the merging of the Japan Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund ....

. The contract was scaled up in 2004. The Cypriot company Hydro-Comp, together with two Indian companies, won a 10-year concession contract for the city of Latur City

Latur City

Latur is situated 636 metres above mean sea level. The district is situated on Maharashtra-Karnataka boundary. On the eastern side of the Latur is Bidar district of Karnataka, whereas Nanded is on the northeast, Parbhani on the northern side, Beed on the Northwest and Osmanabad on the western and...

(Maharashtra) in 2007 and an operator-consultant contract in Madurai

Madurai

Madurai is the third largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It served as the capital city of the Pandyan Kingdom. It is the administrative headquarters of Madurai District and is famous for its temples built by Pandyan and...

(Tamil Nadu). Furthermore, the private Indian infrastructure development company SPML is engaged in Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) projects, such as a bulk water supply project for Bhiwandi

Bhiwandi

Bhiwandi is a city, in the district of Thane, in the western state of Maharashtra, in India, located 20 km to the north-east of Mumbai and 15 km to the north-east of Thane city...

(Maharashtra).

Rural areas. There are about a 100,000 rural water supply systems in India. At least in some states responsibility for service provision is in the process of being partially transferred from State Water Boards and district

Districts of India

governments to Panchayati Raj

Panchayati Raj

Institutions (PRI) at the block or village level (there were about 604 districts and 256,000 villages in India in 2002, according to Subdivisions of India

Subdivisions of India

The Administrative divisions of India are Indian subnational administrative units; they compose a nested hierarchy of country subdivisions. Indian states and territories frequently use different local titles for the same level of subdivision The Administrative divisions of India are Indian...

. Blocks are an intermediate level between districts and villages). Where this transfer has been initiated, it seems to be more advanced for single-village water schemes than for more complex multi-village water schemes. Despite their professed role Panchayati Raj Institutions currently play only a limited role in provision of rural water supply and sanitation. There has been limited success in implementing decentralization, partly due to low priority by some state governments. Rural sanitation is typically provided by households themselves in the form of latrines.

Innovative approaches

A number of innovative approaches to improve water supply and sanitation have been tested in India, in particular in the early 2000s. These include community-led total sanitation, demand-driven approaches in rural water supply, a public-private partnerships to improve the continuity of urban water supply in Karnataka, and the use of micro-credit to women in order to improve access to water.

Community-led total sanitation

In 1999 a demand-driven and people-centered sanitation program was initiated under the name Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) or Community-led total sanitation

Community-led total sanitation

. It evolved from the limited achievements of the first structured programme for rural sanitation in India, the Central Rural Sanitation Programme, which had minimal community participation. Community-led total sanitation is not focused on building infrastructure, but on preventing open defecation through peer pressure and shame. In Maharashtra where the program started more than 2000 Gram Panchayat

Gram panchayat

Gram panchayats are local self-governments at the village or small town level in India. As of 2002 there were about 265,000 gram panchayats in India. The gram panchayat is the foundation of the Panchayat System. A gram panchayat can be set up in villages with minimum population of 300...

s have achieved "open defecation free" status. Villages that achieve this status receive monetary rewards and high publicity under a program called Nirmal Gram Puraskar.

Demand-driven approaches in rural water supply

Most rural water supply schemes in India use a centralized, supply-driven approach, i.e. a government institution designs a project and has it built with little community consultation and no capacity building for the community, often requiring no water fees to be paid for its subsequent operation. Since 2002 the Government of India has rolled out at the national level a program to change the way in which water and sanitation services are supported in rural areas. The program, called Swajaldhara, decentralizes service delivery responsibility to rural local governments and user groups. Under the new approach communities are being consulted and trained, and users agree up-front to pay a tariff that is set at a level sufficiently high to cover operation and maintenance costs. It also includes measures to promote sanitation and to improve hygiene behavior. The national program follows a pilot program launched in 1999.

According to a 2008 World Bank study in 10 Indian states, Swajaldhara results in lower capital costs, lower administrative costs and better service quality compared to the supply-driven approach. In particular, the study found that the average full cost of supply-driven schemes is per cubic meter, while it is only per cubic meter for demand-driven schemes. These costs include capital, operation and maintenance costs, administrative costs and coping costs incurred by users of malfunctioning systems. Coping costs include traveling long distances to obtain water, standing in long queues, storing water and repairing failed systems. Among the surveyed systems that were built using supply-driven approach system breakdowns were common, the quantity and quality of water supply were less than foreseen in designs, and 30% of households did not get daily supply in summer. The poor functioning of one system sometimes leads to the construction of another system, so that about 30% of households surveyed were served by several systems. Currently only about 10% of rural water schemes built in India use a demand-driven approach. Since water users have to pay lower or no tariffs under the supply-driven approach, this discourages them to opt for a demand-driven approach, even if the likelihood of the systems operating on a sustainable basis is higher under a demand-driven approach.

Achieving continuous water supply with the help of a private operator in Karnataka

In the cities of Hubli, Belgaum

Belgaum

Belgaum is a city and a municipal corporation in Belgaum district in the state of Karnataka, India. It is the fourth largest city of the state of Karnataka, the first three being Bangalore, Mysore, Hubli-Dharwad....

and Gulbarga

Gulbarga

Gulbarga is a city in the Indian state of Karnataka. It is the administrative headquarters of Gulbarga District. It was formerly part of Nizam's Hyderabad state...

in the state of Karnataka

Karnataka

, the private operator Veolia increased water supply from once every 2–15 days for 1–2 hours, to 24 hours per day for 180,000 people (12% of the population of the 3 cities) within 2 years (2006–2008). This was achieved by carefully selecting and ring-fencing demonstration zones (one in each city), renovating the distribution network, installing meters, introducing a well-functioning commercial system, and effective grass-roots social intermediation by an NGO, all without increasing the amount of bulk water supplied. The project, known by its acronym as KUWASIP (Karnataka Urban Water Sector Improvement Project), was supported by a 39.5 million loan from the World Bank

World Bank

The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...

. It constitutes a milestone for India, where no large city so far has achieved continuous water supply. The project is expected to be scaled-up to cover the entire area of the three cities.

Micro-credit for water connections in Tamil Nadu

In Tiruchirapalli

Tiruchirapalli

Tiruchirappalli ) , also called Tiruchi or Trichy , is a city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and the administrative headquarters of Tiruchirappalli District. It is the fourth largest municipal corporation in Tamil Nadu and also the fourth largest urban agglomeration in the state...

in Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...

, the NGO Gramalaya, established in 1987, and women self-help groups promote access to water supply and sanitation by the poor through micro-credit. Among the benefits are that women can spend more time with their children, earn additional income, and sell surplus water to neighbors. This money contributes to her repayment of the WaterCredit loan. The initiative is supported by the US-based non-profit Water Partners International.

The Jamshedpur Utilities and Services Company

The Jamshedpur Utilities and Services Company (JUSCO) provides water and sanitation services in Jamshedpur, a major industrial center in East India that is home to Tata Steel

Tata Steel

. Until 2004 a division of Tata Steel provided water to the city’s residents. However, service quality was poor with intermittent supply, high water losses and no metering. To improve this situation and to establish good practices that could be replicated in other Indian cities, JUSCO was set up as a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Steel in 2004.

Efficiency and service quality improved substantially over the following years. The level on non-revenue water

Non-revenue water

decreased from an estimated 36% in 2005 to 10% in 2009; one quarter of residents received continuous water supply (although the average supply remained at only 7 hours per day) in 2009; the share of metered connections increased from 2% in 2007 to 26% in 2009; the number of customers increased; and the company recovered its operating costs plus a portion of capital costs. Identifying and legalizing illegal connections was an important element in the reduction of non-revenue water. The utility prides itself today of the good drinking water quality provided and encourages its customers to drink from the tap. The utility also operates a wastewater treatment plant that meets discharge standards. The private utility pays salaries that are higher than civil service salaries and conducts extensive training programs for its staff. It has also installed a modern system to track and resolve customer complaints. Furthermore, it conducts independent annual customer satisfaction surveys. JUSCO’s vision is to be the preferred provider of water supply and other urban services throughout India. Together with Ranhill Malaysia it won a 25-year concession contract for providing the water supply in Haldia

Haldia

City, West Bengal.

Efficiency

There are only limited data on the operating efficiency of utilities in India, and even fewer data on the efficiency of investments.

Concerning operating efficiency, a study of 20 cities by the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission with the support of the Asian Development Bank showed an average level of non-revenue water

Non-revenue water

(NRW) of 32%. However, 5 out of the 20 cities did not provide any data. For those that provided data there probably is a large margin of error, since only 25% of connections are metered, which makes it very difficult to estimate non-revenue water. Also, three utilities show NRW levels of less than 20%, two of which have practically no metering, which indicates that the numbers are not reliable and actual values are likely to be higher. In Delhi, which was not included in the ADB study, non-revenue water stood at 53% and there were about 20 employees per 1000 connections. Furthermore, only 70% of revenue billed was actually collected.

Concerning labor productivity

Labor productivity

Workforce productivity is the amount of goods and services that a worker produces in a given amount of time. It is one of several types of productivity that economists measure. Workforce productivity can be measured for a firm, a process, an industry, or a country...

, the 20 utilities in the sample had on average 7.4 employees per 1,000 connections, which is much higher than the estimated level for an efficient utility. A survey of a larger sample of Indian utilities showed an average ratio of 10.9 employees per 1,000 connections.

Tariffs, cost recovery and subsidies

Water and sewer tariffs

Water tariff

A water tariff is a price assigned to water supplied by a public utility through a piped network to its customers. The term is also often applied to wastewater tariffs...

in India are low in both urban and rural areas. In urban areas they were set at the equivalent of about 0.10 per cubic meter in 2007 and recovered about 60% of operating and maintenance costs, with large differences between cities. Some cities such as Kolkata do not bill residential users at all. In rural areas the level of cost recovery often is even lower than in urban areas and was estimated at only 20% in rural Punjab. Subsidies were estimated at 1.1 billion per year in the mid-1990s, accounting to 4% of all government subsidies in India. 70% of those benefiting from the subsidies are not poor.

Urban areas

Metering. Water metering

Water metering

is the precondition for billing water users on the basis of volume consumed. According to a 1999 survey of 300 cities about 62% of urban water customers in metropolitan areas and 50% in smaller cities are metered (average 55%). However, meters often do not work so that many "metered" customers are charged flat rates. Bangalore and Pune are among the few Indian cities that meter all their customers. Many other cities have no metering at all or meter only commercial customers. Users of standposts receive water free of charge. A 2007 study of 20 cities by the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission

Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission

Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission is a massive city modernisation scheme launched by the Government of India under Ministry of Urban Development. It envisages a total investment of over...

with the support of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) showed that only 25% of customers of these utilities were metered. Most other customers paid a flat tariff independent of consumption. Some utilities, such as the one serving Kolkata

Kolkata

Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...

, actually do not bill residential users at all.

Tariff levels. According to the same ADB study the average tariff for all customers - including industrial, commercial and public customers - is per cubic meter. According to a 2007 global water tariff survey by the OECD the residential water tariff for a consumption of 15 m³ was equivalent to 0.15 per m3 in Bangalore, 0.12 per m3 in Calcutta, 0.11 per m3 in New Delhi and 0.09 per m3 in Mumbai. Only Bangalore had a sewer tariff of 0.02 per m3. The other three cities did not charge for sewerage, although the better-off tend to be the ones with access to sewers.

Tariff structure. The tariff for customers that are effectively metered is typically a uniform linear tariff, although some cities apply increasing-block tariffs.

Affordability. Urban water tariffs were highly affordable according to data from the year 2000. A family of five living on the poverty line which uses 20 cubic meter of water per month would spend less than 1.2% of its budget on its water bill if it had a water meter. If it did not have a water meter and was charged a flat rate, it would pay 2.0% of its budget. This percentage lies below the often used affordability threshold of 5%. However, at that time the average metered tariff was estimated at only 0.03 per m3, or less than three times what it was estimated to be in 2007. Apparently no more up-to-date estimates on the share of the average water bill in the budget of the poor are available.

Cost recovery. According to a 2007 study of 20 cities the average rate of cost recovery for operating and maintenance costs of utilities in these cities was 60%. Seven of the 20 utilities generated a cash surplus to partially finance investments. Chennai

Chennai

Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...

generated the highest relative surplus. The lowest cost recovery ratio was found in Indore

Indore

Indore is one of the major city in India, the largest city and commercial center of the state of Madhya Pradesh in central India. Indore is located 190 km west of the state capital Bhopal. According to the 2011 Indian census, Indore city has a population of 1,960,631...

in Madhya Pradesh

Madhya Pradesh

Madhya Pradesh , often called the Heart of India, is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal and Indore is the largest city....

, which recovered less than 20% of its operating and maintenance costs.

Delhi example. In Delhi

Delhi

revenues were just sufficient to cover about 60% of operating costs of the city’s utility in 2004; maintenance has, as a result, been minimal. In the past, the Delhi utility has relied heavily on government financial support for recurrent and capital expenditures in the magnitude of per year and respectively. As financial support for both capital and recurrent expenditures has been passed on as loans by the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi, the utility’s balance sheet is loaded with a huge debt totaling about that it is unlikely to be able to service. Accounts receivable represent more than 12 months of billing, part of it being non recoverable. The average tariff was estimated at 0.074/m³ in 2001, compared to production costs of 0.085/m³, the latter probably being a very conservative estimate that does not take into account capital costs.

Challenges faced in attempting to increase tariffs. Even if users are willing to pay more for better services, political interests often prevent tariffs from being increased even to a small extent. An example is the city of Jabalpur where the central government and the state government financed a water supply project from 2000-2004 to be operated by the Jabalpur Municipal Corporation, an entity that collected only less than half of its operational costs in revenues even before this major investment. Even so the municipal corporation initially refused to increase tariffs. Only following pressure from the state government it reluctantly agreed to increase commercial tariffs, but not residential tariffs.

Rural areas

Cost recovery in rural areas is low and a majority of the rural water systems are defunct for lack of maintenance. Some state governments subsidize rural water systems, but funds are scarce and insufficient. In rural areas in Punjab

Punjab (India)

Punjab ) is a state in the northwest of the Republic of India, forming part of the larger Punjab region. The state is bordered by the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh to the east, Haryana to the south and southeast and Rajasthan to the southwest as well as the Pakistani province of Punjab to the...

, operation and maintenance cost recovery is only about 20%. On one hand, expenditures are high due to high salary levels, high power tariff and a high number of operating staff. On the other hand, revenue is paid only by the 10% of the households who have private connections. Those drawing water from public stand posts do not pay any water charges at all, although the official tariff for public stand post users is per month per household.

Subsidies and targeting of subsidies

There are no accurate recent estimates of the level of subsidies for water and sanitation in India. It has been estimated that transfers to the water sector in India amounted to per year in the mid-1990s, accounting for 4% of all government subsidies in India. About 98% of this subsidy is said to come from State rather than Central budgets. This figure may only cover recurrent cost subsidies and not investment subsidies, which are even higher (see below). There is little targeting of subsidies. According to the World Bank, 70% of those benefiting from subsidies for public water supply are not poor, while 40% of the poor are excluded because they do not have access to public water services.

Investment and financing

Investment in urban water supply and sanitation has increased during the first decade of the 21st century, not least thanks to increased central government grants made available under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission

Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission

alongside with loans from the Housing and Urban Development Corporation

Housing and Urban Development Corporation

The Housing and Urban Development Corporation Limited is a government-owned corporation in India. One of the public sector undertakings, it is wholly owned by the Union Government and is under the administrative control of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation. It is charged with...

Investment

The Eleventh Five-Year Plan (2007–2012) foresees investments of for urban water supply and sanitation, including urban (stormwater) drainage and solid waste management.

Financing

55% of the investments foreseen under the 11th Plan are to be financed by the central government, 28% by state governments, 8% by "institutional financing" such as HUDCO, 8% by external agencies and 1.5% by the private sector. Local governments are not expected to contribute to the investments. The volume of investments is expected to double to reach 0.7% of GDP. Also, it implies a shift in financing from state governments to the central government. During the 9th Plan only 24% of investments were financed by the central government and 76% by state governments. Central government financing was heavily focused on water supply in rural areas.

Institutions

State Financing Corporations (SFC) play an important role in making recommendations regarding the allocation of state tax revenues between states and municipalities, criteria for grants, and measures to improve the financial position of municipalities. According to the Planning Commission, SFCs are in some cases not sufficiently transparent and/or competent, have high transactions costs, and their recommendations are sometimes not being implemented. An important source of financing are loans from Housing and Urban Development Corporation

Housing and Urban Development Corporation

Ltd (HUDCO), a Central government financial undertaking. HUDCO loans to municipal corporations need to be guaranteed by state governments. HUDCO also on-lends loans from foreign aid, including Japanese aid, to states. The Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission

Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission

initiated in 2005 also plays an increasingly important role in financing urban water supply and sanitation through central government grants.

The current system of financing water supply and sanitation is fragmented through a number of different national and state programs. This results in simultaneous implementation with different and conflicting rules in neighboring areas. In rural areas different programs undermine each other, adversely affecting demand driven approaches requiring cost sharing by users.

External cooperation

In absolute terms India receives almost twice as much development assistance for water, sanitation and water resources management as any other country, according to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is an international economic organisation of 34 countries founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade...

. India accounts for 13 per cent of commitments in global water aid for 2006-07, receiving an annual average of about 830 million (€620 million), more than double the amount provided to China. India's biggest water and sanitation donor is Japan, which provided 635 million, followed by the World Bank with 130 million. The annual average for 2004-06, however, was about half as much at 448 million, of which Japan provided 293 million and the World Bank

World Bank

The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...

87 million. The Asian Development Bank

Asian Development Bank

The Asian Development Bank is a regional development bank established on 22 August 1966 to facilitate economic development of countries in Asia...

and Germany are other important external partners in water supply and sanitation.

In 2003 the Indian government decided it would only accept bilateral aid from five countries (the United Kingdom, the United States, Russia, Germany and Japan). A further 22 bilateral donors were asked to channel aid through nongovernmental organisations, United Nations agencies or multilateral institutions such as the European Union, the Asian Development Bank or the World Bank.

Asian Development Bank

India has increased its loans from the Asian Development Bank

Asian Development Bank

The Asian Development Bank is a regional development bank established on 22 August 1966 to facilitate economic development of countries in Asia...

(ADB) since 2005 after the introduction of new financing modalities, such as the multitranche financing facility (MFF) which features a framework agreement with the national government under which financing is provided in flexible tranches for subprojects that meet established selection criteria. In 2008 four MFFs for urban development investment programs were under way in North Karnataka

Karnataka

(862 million), Jammu and Kashmir

Jammu and Kashmir

Jammu and Kashmir is the northernmost state of India. It is situated mostly in the Himalayan mountains. Jammu and Kashmir shares a border with the states of Himachal Pradesh and Punjab to the south and internationally with the People's Republic of China to the north and east and the...

(1,260 million), Rajasthan

Rajasthan

(450 million), and Uttarakhand

Uttarakhand

Uttarakhand , formerly Uttaranchal, is a state in the northern part of India. It is often referred to as the Land of Gods due to the many holy Hindu temples and cities found throughout the state, some of which are among Hinduism's most spiritual and auspicious places of pilgrimage and worship...

(1,589 million). Included in these MFFs are major investments for the development of urban water supply and sanitation services.

Germany

Germany supports access to water and sanitation in India through financial cooperation by KfW

KFW

KFW may refer to:*Keith Fullerton Whitman , an American musician*KfW or Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, a German public-sector financial institution...

development bank and technical cooperation by GTZ. Since the early 1990s both institutions have supported watershed management

Watershed management

Watershed management is the study of the relevant characteristics of a watershed aimed at the sustainable distribution of its resources and the process of creating and implementing plans, programs, and projects to sustain and enhance watershed functions that affect the plant, animal, and human...

in rural Maharashtra

Maharashtra

Maharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...

, using a participatory approach first piloted by the Social Center in Ahmednagar and that constituted a fundamental break with the previous top-down, technical approach to watershed management that had yielded little results. The involvement of women in decision-making is an essential part of the project. While the benefits are mostly in terms of increased agricultural production, the project also increases availability of water resources for rural water supply. In addition, GTZ actively supports the introduction of ecological sanitation

Ecological sanitation

Ecological sanitation, also known as ecosan or eco-san, are terms coined to describe a form of sanitation that usually involves urine diversion and the recycling of water and nutrients contained within human wastes back into the local environment....

concepts in India, including community toilets and decentralized wastewater systems for schools as well as small and medium enterprises. Many of these systems produce biogas from wastewater, provide fertilizer and irrigation water.

Japan

As India's largest donor in the sector the Japan International Cooperation Agency

Japan International Cooperation Agency

The Japan International Cooperation Agency is an independent governmental agency that coordinates official development assistance for the government of Japan...

(JICA) finances a multitude of projects with a focus on capital-intensive urban water supply and sanitation projects, often involving follow-up projects in the same locations.

Current projects. Projects approved between 2006 and 2009 include the Guwahati

Guwahati

Guwahati, Pragjyotishpura in ancient Assam formerly known as Gauhati is a metropolis,the largest city of Assam in India and ancient urban area in North East India, with a population of 963,429. It is also the largest metropolitan area in north-eastern India...

Water Supply Project (Phases I and II) in Assam

Assam

Assam , also, rarely, Assam Valley and formerly the Assam Province , is a northeastern state of India and is one of the most culturally and geographically distinct regions of the country...

, the Kerala

Kerala

or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....

Water Supply Project (Phased II and III), the Hogenakkal Water Supply and Fluorosis Mitigation Project

Hogenakkal Integrated Drinking Water Project

Hogenakkal Integrated Drinking Water Project is a fluorosis mitigation drinking water project being undertaken at Hogenakkal, Dharmapuri district, state of Tamil Nadu, India. It is scheduled to be executed by Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board , with funding from Japan Bank for...

(Phases I and II) in Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

, the Goa

Goa

Goa , a former Portuguese colony, is India's smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Located in South West India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its...

Water Supply and Sewerage Project, the Agra

Agra

Agra a.k.a. Akbarabad is a city on the banks of the river Yamuna in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India, west of state capital, Lucknow and south from national capital New Delhi. With a population of 1,686,976 , it is one of the most populous cities in Uttar Pradesh and the 19th most...

Water Supply Project, the Amritsar

Amritsar

Amritsar is a city in the northern part of India and is the administrative headquarters of Amritsar district in the state of Punjab, India. The 2001 Indian census reported the population of the city to be over 1,500,000, with that of the entire district numbering 3,695,077...

Sewerage Project in Punjab, the Orissa

Orissa

Orissa , officially Odisha since Nov 2011, is a state of India, located on the east coast of India, by the Bay of Bengal. It is the modern name of the ancient nation of Kalinga, which was invaded by the Maurya Emperor Ashoka in 261 BC. The modern state of Orissa was established on 1 April...

Integrated Sanitation Improvement Project, and the Bangalore

Bangalore

Water Supply and Sewerage Project (Phase II).

Evaluation of past projects. An ex-post evaluation of one large program, the Urban Water Supply and Sanitation Improvement Program, showed that "some 60%-70% of the goals were achieved" and that "results were moderate". The program was implemented by the Housing and Urban Development Corporation, Ltd. (HUDCO) from 1996 to 2003 in 26 cities. The evaluation says that "state government plans were not based on sufficient demand research, including the research for residents’ willingness to pay for services", so that demand for connections was overestimated. Also fees (water tariffs) were rarely increased despite recommendations to increase them. The evaluation concludes that "HUDCO was not able to make significant contributions to the effectiveness, sustainability, or overall quality of individual projects. One of the reasons that not much attention was given to this problem is probably that there was little risk of default on the loans thanks to state government guarantees."

World Bank

Current projects. The World Bank finances a number of projects in urban and rural areas that are fully or partly dedicated to water supply and sanitation. In urban areas the World Bank supports the Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh , is one of the 28 states of India, situated on the southeastern coast of India. It is India's fourth largest state by area and fifth largest by population. Its capital and largest city by population is Hyderabad.The total GDP of Andhra Pradesh is $100 billion and is ranked third...

Municipal Development Project (approved in 2009, 300 million loan), the Karnataka

Karnataka

Municipal Reform Project (approved in 2006, 216 million loan), the Third Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Urban Development Project (approved in 2005, 300 million loan) and the Karnataka Urban Water Sector Improvement Project (approved in 2004, 39.5 million loan). In rural areas it supports the Andhra Pradesh Rural Water Supply and Sanitation (150 million loan, approved in 2009), the Second Karnataka Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project (approved in 2001, 151.6 million loan), the Uttaranchal Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project (approved in 2006, 120 million loan) and the Punjab Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project (approved in 2006, 154 million loan).

Evaluation of past projects. A study by the World Bank's independent evaluation department evaluated the impact of the World Bank-supported interventions in the provision of urban water supply and wastewater services in Mumbai

Mumbai

between 1973 and 1990. It concluded that water supply and sewerage planning, construction and operations in Bombay posed daunting challenges to those who planned and implemented the investment program. At the outset, there was a huge backlog of unmet demand because of underinvestment. Population and economic growth accelerated in the following decades and the proportion of the poor increased as did the slums which they occupied. The intended impacts of the program have not been realized. Shortcomings include that "water is not safe to drink; water service, especially to the poor, is difficult to access and is provided at inconvenient hours of the day; industrial water needs are not fully met; sanitary facilities are too few in number and often unusable; and urban drains, creeks and coastal waters are polluted with sanitary and industrial wastes."

External links

World Bank:India's Water Economy:Bracing for a Turbulent Future, 2005
Sustaining Water for All in a Changing Climate The World Bank, 2010, Case Study on water resources in Andhra Pradesh, India. pgs. 73-77.
Comprehensive Portal on Water in India: India Water Portal
Solution Exchange:Water Community in India
Water and Environmental Sanitation Network India:WES-Net India
Asian Development Bank/Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission: 2007 Benchmarking and Data Book of Water Utilities in India
World Bank:Reaching the Poor Through Sustainable Partnerships: The Slum Sanitation Program in Mumbai, India
Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission:Overview

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