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Womenfolk walking for miles to fetch drinking water and the spread of life-threatening diseases from water contamination, may be considerably lessened in the next few years, with the success achieved by the Rajiv Gandhi National Drinking Water Mission (RGNDWM) under the Department of Drinking Water Supply, Ministry of Rural Development. The Mission has increased its coverage of rural population from 56 per cent habitations in 1985 to 99.6 per cent in 2004. Now, only 5,000 villages remain to be a part of the mission. Women are actively involved in programmes of the RGNDWM. It is compulsory for one third of the members of water and sanitation committees to be women as the National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP) lays a lot of stress on their participation. The National Commission for Women, Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) and the Department of Women and Child Development play an important role in it.
Being one of the most successful programmes in the country, the Rajiv Gandhi Drinking Water Mission has been allocated Rs. 3,300 crore during the current year. The programme has got an additional fund of Rs. 248 crore after the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government came into the power. Till September 2004, the Mission has already spent 50.55 per cent of the funds. As there has been a tremendous growth in demand and cent per cent utilization of funds, there has been a 30 to 40 per cent increase in allocation as compared to the last Plan.
The prime objectives of the programme are ensuring coverage of all rural habitations especially ‘to reach the unreached’ with access to safe drinking water, ensuring sustainability of the systems and sources and tackling problems of water quality in affected habitations. Therefore, the interesting aspect of the Mission has been the intense involvement of local panchayati raj institutions. The Mission boasts of a successful networking between the Government and NGOs. But it is not without its share of problems and constraints. For any scheme or programme to be successful, checks and balances are essential. Water has always been a politically and socially sensitive issue. Supplying clean and safe drinking water in rural areas is a gigantic and daunting task. Rural drinking water supply mainly consists of the ground water. Almost 85 per cent of the rural drinking water schemes are dependent on it. The ground water is indiscriminately extracted by farmers, mainly for irrigation purposes. This causes ground water depletion and leads to the problem of water sustainability. Therefore, one needs to have a regular water auditing mechanism to prevent indiscriminate and unwarranted use of ground water besides, a greater social awareness while using the water economically.
Another problem is that of the quality of water-supply i.e., keeping the water-supply free from contamination. Water is defined as safe if it is free from the biological contamination (guinea worm, cholera and typhoid causing germs) and the chemical contamination (excess fluoride, brackishness, iron, arsenic and nitrates). The biological contamination is man-made, caused by faecal matter, human waste and contamination by deposit of industrial wastes and effluents. Indiscriminate use of fertilizers also leads to biological contamination of water. The guinea worm, however, has been eradicated from the country and certified so by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2000.
The chemical contamination is owing to the nature of the earth’s crust, the chemicals present in there tend to enter into the ground water, causing contamination. There are nearly 2,16,000 habitations in the country which face water quality problems. Iron is the main cause of water contamination in the maximum number of habitations followed by fluoride and salinity.
Over the years there has been a rapid growth in demand, leading to temporal and spatial shortages. The villages facing such shortages, however, have already been identified. In view of ambitious plans of the Department, by 2010, all the water quality related problems would be eradicated. It is, however, required to establish strong public-private partnerships to achieve such objectives. Unfortunately, so far, these partnerships have been very few as high capital investment are less and the returns are low. There is a long gestation period, which is why not many private entrepreneurs are looking benevolently towards it. But the State governments have already accelerated the reforms process. They are trying to establish utilities for collection and setting up multi-villages schemes.
There is also an urgent need to improve institutionalized water quality monitoring and surveillance system in the country as increase in pollution and depletion of water sources would be greatly affecting the entire water supply sector in times to come. As part of the strategy, a decision has been taken to develop an integrated Water Quality Testing, Monitoring and Surveillance system to be operated with community participation by using Catchment Area Approach (CAA) to ensure safe and reliable drinking water supply.
Also the major tasks before the Mission include the coverage of all residual and slipped back habitations and to ensure sustained supply of safe drinking water and sanitation facilities to all rural habitations, schools and anganwadis in the shortest possible time.
**Contributed by Manisha Jain, Freelance Writer
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