With the onset of summer, the same problem of water scarcity has haunted the people of Odisha and our efficiency of providing minimum drinking water for all in Odisha is under scanner.
Every year, despite huge investment by the Government and non-Government agencies, from the beginning of the summer, the lapses in the service delivery system come to the fore due to severe water scarcity. No means appears in the mind for solution to the problem, other than provisioning of water through tanker to the communities who are water scarce.
But, the fundamental question is why the same problem persists, despite creation of new drinking water sources across the State every year - even more than the requirement in comparison to population growth.
Besides, our State is in a quite comfortable situation in comparison to many other States of India in terms of availability of ground water, surface water and precipitation.
First manifestation of water scarcity is the non-functionality of drinking water sources. There are many habitations, where we can find adequate drinking water sources having no quality problem. But most of the sources are defunct due to lack of proper operation and maintenance. In the present context, the sole responsibility of operation and maintenance of drinking water sources is with the Panchayati Raj Institutions. In many cases people, even the Panchayat institutions, are starkly unaware of carrying out operation and maintenance of the sources. To overcome the problem, more than one and a half decades ago, the State Government initiated an elaborate plan to appoint Self Employed Mechanics (SEMs) in every village, especially of hand-pumps. While the SEMs have improved, the efficiency of fixing machinery related problems and plenty of other bottlenecks plague their full utilization. Thus, we see many instances of sources not repaired expeditiously. The repair work gets delayed for a variety of reasons like non-availability of spares, non-payment of their dues and non-cooperation of the people and Gram Panchayats. The pipe water supply projects carry a set of different problems, which is much more complex than management of hand-pumps. The pipe water supply projects require three types of technical expertise for maintenance and repair i.e. mechanical expertise for pump set, electrical expertise for motor and electricity and the civil expertise for pipeline and stand post. It is hard to find the combination of these three expertise in a row in the rural area.
Again, as the pipe water supply requires recurring expenditure like electricity bill, after a few months of operation, the system automatically closes due to non-payment of the bill. Due to lack of proper institution building and structural approach ignoring social dimensions, the system fails to deliver desired output. In absence of ‘community ownership’ over the drinking water sources, the State machineries and Panchayats seem overburdened.
The second manifestation of water scarcity is the ‘summer drawdown’ due to depletion of ground water. Depletion of ground water has emerged as the major area of concern as there is not much effort to recharge the ground water. Information gathering by the State on the state of affairs of drinking water provisioning is poor. The drinking water sector in Odisha depends on ground water for more than 80 per cent of its supplies. But, in the recent years, ground water table is on the decline due to poor level of recharge. The Central Ground Water Board has warned the State regarding decline of more than two metres in ground water table (over 10 years time) in 24 districts of the State. Despite this, ground water recharging is yet to be mainstreamed in the State. Another aspect affecting it further is that many sources do not meet the prescribed depth norm of the Government while installing a tube well, as most of the tube wells are installed later part of the financial year i.e. in post-monsoon, while ground water table is high in comparison to pre-monsoon. This is creating a condition of seasonal defunct, despite each part of the tube wells remaining intact.
Summing-up the problem and manifestations of problem in terms of water crisis, there is a lack of prudent management plan for both drinking water sources as well as water resources feeding to drinking water sources. Instead of focusing on a number of sources created, access to drinking water by people has to be brought to the fore of planning and that will force to think of an integrated planning for creating a drinking water secure community, rather than drinking water covered community. Hence, a comprehensive water security planning is required. Water security implies “regular access to water resources of sufficient quantity, quality, reliability, resilience and affordability for the purpose of drinking, washing and cooking (domestic), small scale livelihoods and ecosystem support”. Thus, essentially the focus should be on water resources along with supply services (water sources).
Considering the competitive use of water within the community itself and issues pertaining to allocation of water to various sectors within the community, a comprehensive approach needs to be adopted to ensure drinking water availability for all. Despite keeping water for drinking and domestic purposes at the top of the priority list, an approach of looking at drinking water in isolation will actually not help. Considering the changing pattern of rainfall, frequent occurrence of calamities like flood and drought and over-extraction of ground water to meet all sorts of requirements, if water within the community will not be planned in a comprehensive manner, the situation will further worsen.
Considering the shifted responsibility and devolution of power along with finance, Gram Panchayats need to be made accountable for water security planning and execution of the plan. However, due steps need to be taken at the top level to ensure inter-departmental convergence and capacity building of Gram Panchayats in this regard.
Availability of water in the desired quantity and quality, at the right time and right place, has been the key to the survival of all living forms. Hence, rather than keeping on fixing the problem of drinking water every year in a fire-fighting approach, intervention needs to be done in a holistic manner. And last but not the least, conservation of water and water harvesting has to be an integral part of water provisioning. Strategic steps need to be taken to educate community in this regard along with judicious use of water. Otherwise, years will be changed, but problem continues to persist.
(The writer works with the WaterAid India, Bhubaneswar. Views expressed here are personal)