Draft Strategic Plan 2010-2022, for Rural Drinking Water - Comments requested by DDWS (MoRD) by 31 January 2011
Forwarded to the portal by: Sujoy Majumdar, DDWS through the Solution Exchange Water Community
The Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation (DDWS), Ministry of Rural Development, has finalized a draft of its Strategic Plan (2010-22) and is inviting comments from the public, to finalise the draft.
DDWS had initiated the process of preparing a new Strategic Plan for Rural Drinking Water early last year. The purpose of the plan is to guide DDWS’ work on rural drinking water up to the year 2022.
Drinking water has formed part of India’s development agenda since the First Five Year Plan. The government prioritized it by launching the National Drinking Water Mission to improve access in rural areas in the early 1980s. However, this centralized, demand-driven approach took a uniform approach for the entire country.
The draft document has the following main sections:
- Part One sets out the Aspirations and Goals for the Strategic Plan of the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation and the rural drinking water sector as a whole.
- Part Two outlines the rising aspirations, current situation, and challenges concerning the rural drinking water sector.
- Part Three sets out the Strategy. The Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation has identified four Strategic Objectives (Enable Drinking Water Security; Water Quality Management; Strengthen Decentralised Governance, and Build Professional Capacity) to achieve its overall objective of providing improved, sustainable water services in rural communities.
- Part Four provides options from which each State can formulate its own Implementation Plan depending on its needs, capacity and resources, and establish a timeframe for achieving transformation.
- Part Five outlines the necessary Learning Agenda, Resources Required and Key Performance Indicators to monitor progress against the Strategy and Implementation Plans.
The Government of India, through the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, has already taken significant steps to meet this challenge through the National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP). This document has been prepared to help operationalise the NRDWP by setting out a Strategic Plan in terms of aspirations, goals, objectives and strategic initiatives for the sector for the period 2010-2022.
Please consider the following points while responding:
- Current situation and challenges
- Source sustainability
- Water quality
- O&M
- Inter-sector coordination
- Continuous professional support
- Impact of climate change
- Strategy and implementation
- Enable drinking water security planning and implementation
- Water quality management
- Strengthen decentralized governance
- Build professional capacity
- Regulation
- Institutional structure
- Learning agenda, resources required and key performance indicators as mentioned in the document.
Inputs requested around the following main questions:
- What are the current challenges from the point of view of Source sustainability, quality, operation and maintenance, inter-sector coordination, professional support and climate change (page 6)?
- How can DDWS strategise (page 9) and implement solutions (page 19) for drinking water security planning and implementation, improve water quality, build professional capacity and strengthen decentralization?
- How can DDWS strengthen regulation (page 28) and institutional structures (page 14)?
- What is the learning agenda (page 32), the resources required and key performance indicators (page 34)
- How can the goals and aspirations be achieved especially in the States with very low coverage of piped water supply schemes like UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, MP, Rajasthan, Orissa, Assam and Chhattisgarh?
The last date for sending in comments to DDWS is 31 January, 2011.
Please send in your comments to:
Sujoy Majumdar
Director (RWS)
Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation,
Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India,
8th Floor, Paryavaran Bhawan, CGO Complex, Lodi Road, New Delhi - 110003.
Ph: +91-11-24360102
Fax: +91-11-24363253
Email: sujoy.m@nic.in; Please cc portal@arghyam.org.
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Comments
1. Time over for the Comments??
Draft Strategic Plan 2010-2022, for Rural Drinking Water - Comments requested by DDWS (MoRD) by 31 January 2011
I would like to know whether the date for making comment is over?? i received communication today only.
2. Deadline
As mentioned on the post, the last date to send comments was Jan 31
3. water treatment at point of use
WHO has recommended that irrespective of the quality of treatment of drinking water at the source{POS}treatment at the point of use{POU] at the household level is the best strategy to prevent water borne diseases;please see WHO website-
http://www.who.int/household_water/en/
Irrespective of whether piped or safe water is available,people cannot stop drinking water;while the drinking water mission goes about its laudabile job of providing water to every indian,which will take time,it will greatly enhance the health of our people immediately by providing for household treatment of water;in a recent article WHO regretted that this is not being done by most country programs as it is not a commercially attractive option.an investment of Rs 200 per household can provide safe water to our hundred million poorest households within the next four years and achieving the millennnium goal of safe water for all.The investment needed does not exceed rs.400 million;it should form a part of the drinking water strategy;the spin off in reduced infant mortality,DALYs gained exceed the expenditure by a hundred times;this is also the recommendation of lancet,the reputed journal on medicine.
4. Response
In the draft strategic plan 2010-22 for Rural Drinking Water, under heading ‘challenges’ two challenges have been mentioned in bold letters.
These challenges could be tackled successfully with the proper utilization of the new simple Arsenic & Fluoride removal technologies. It is also necessary to allocate resources of treatment as per exact use of water, such as segregation of water for general use and water used exclusively for drinking and cooking.
Our goal is to ensure that every rural person has enough safe water for drinking, cooking and other domestic needs such as washing, cleaning etc. 70 Ltrs per day per person is the quantity of water required for this, which should be made available to each person.
If one looks at it closely, the actual water required of drinking & cooking pupose is only 5% of total water about 4 to 5 Ltrs. per person per day. Rest all 95% of water is for bathing, cleaning & other general purpose uses.
Hence, if we take good care of treatment and supply of this 5% drinking water, real challenge of reducing illness in households affected by unsafe drinking water can be tackled successfully.
Aim of only supplying 70 liters of filtered piped water is not sufficient to attain the target of reducing illness. Also, there is no need to treat all these 70 liters of water to make it drinkable and then use it for washing purpose. This will be a waste of resources.
we should, therefore, make arrangements to provide special quality attention to make this 5 % water safe for drinking. Hence, instead of making arrangements only for supplying 70 liters of piped general water, it is necessary to make quality efforts for supplying the 5 liters of safe drinking water per person, separately, in addition to 65 liters general purpose piped water. Instead of concentrating resources to treat all the general water, this 95% water can be just filtered through equipment like sand filter etc. and supplied through piped line for general purpose.
In the villages, where the drinking water is affected by contaminations such as Arsenic, Fluoride and bacteria, the drinking water, which is only 5% of the total water requirement, can be given quality attention to make it really fit for drinking and free from Fluoride, Arsenic and bacteria. This water can be personally collected by households from the centrally located distribution tank.
I believe planners must have already considered these aspects. However, I have specifically mentioned this here because, during the interactions with official responsible for supervision of drinking water scheme, it was mentioned that it is mandatory for them to supply 80 liters of piped water. Accordingly they have made arrangements to supply 80 litres of piped water. However, although their area is affected by Fluoride contamination, they do not have separate funds and arrangements to treat this water for defluoridation and supply it separately. They supply piped water as it is. Also, there was a question of who will spend the money for this defluoridation, in case there is a cost for daily consumable for defluoridation of drinking water, to make it free from Fluoride. All these issues need to be addressed in case we have to have separate arrangements for this 5% drinking water
Modern water treatment techniques such as Reserve Osmosis or Ion Exchange or techniques, which involve complex operations, require high initial investments and special technical skills for carrying out day-to-day operation and maintenance of the equipments. Therefore, these techniques are not feasible for handing over these facilities to village level communities.
Instead, it is necessary to promote simple techniques that are easy to use and which can be operated without any special technical skill. While being simple, the removal technique should be capable of bringing down the Arsenic or Fluoride level below the threat-level (10ppb Arsenic and 1.5ppm Fluoride ), while being simple to use.
The world health Organization (WHO) has recently recognized Point-of-use water treatment techniques as an effective means of reducing illness in households affected by unsafe drinking water.
There are new point-of-use technologies, which meet these qualifications (No high capital investment and No special skills for operation and maintenance).
These technologies need to be supported and strengthened.
One such technology is sachet based technology developed by Prerana Laboratories, Pune, which does not require high capital investment and does not involve operation and maintenance issues.
For household treatment the technique needs only bucket and cotton cloth for filtration. Community level treatment will require one treatment tank and one filtered water tank. No technical skill is involved for operation and maintenance.
Such point-of-use techniques will be more useful, where habitations are in small pockets like small scattered villages or Adivasi settlements, where piped water supply schemes are not feasible, and which are affected by Fluoride, Arsenic or bacterial contamination in drinking water. These can be provided household sachets or small community treatment tanks for drinking water supply.
Such technologies with low capital investment, low operation & maintenance issues are particularly ideal for geographically difficult areas such as adivasi areas and very small villages, where large piped schemes etc. are not feasible. Advantage of this simple technique is that the Arsenic / Fluoride affected people from remote adivasi areas also can be brought under safe drinking water umbrella without much capital investment and O & M issues.
Regards,
Ravi Savant
Prerana Laboratories, Prerana House, Near Chhatrapati Bank, Vishal Nagar, Jagtap Dairy, Aundh-Wakad Road, Pune-411027. E-mail: prerana_lab@vsnl.com Tel: 09371015199
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