The Amphan cyclone has disfigured the lives of people living in the Sundarbans. Houses have been torn apart, farms have been filled with brackish water making the land unsuitable for farming and betel leaves have been destroyed. People in the Sundarbans are in a life-threatening situation with makeshift shacks to live in and no means to earn a living.

Locals had expected to get through the corona virus pandemic by living off their savings and small incomes in their homeland but Amphan destroyed whatever little they had left. Families that were saving to start fishing or other businesses will have to start from square one all over again and this time it would be a feat considering the sheer appalling scenario in the Sundarbans at the moment.

With homes being destroyed along with livelihood, people in the Sundarbans face a threat to their very lives. They have no source of income and their homes are in complete ruins. Locals are living in unsanitary shacks which is extremely dangerous especial in present times where the coronavirus has ailed many-even those living in safer conditions. Although families haven’t become completely despondent and are trying to rebuild their homes, one can only wonder how much they are struggling. Their affliction at the present moment is beyond what we can fathom as they face both the pandemic and the consequences of a devastating storm together. However, they are continuing to work together as a community; helping and supporting each other.

Monsoon 2020: Countrywide deficit of 10 percent in July; September may have heavy rains

As per data from the India Meteorological Department, July experienced deficient rains due to a monsoon trough (line of low pressure) moving towards the Himalayan foothills repeatedly, which left many parts of northwest and central India dry. With the countrywide monsoon deficit of 10 percent, July became the driest month in five years. However, the monsoon forecast by the weather agency for the second half of the season points out to the possibility of heavy rains in September as La Nina conditions are expected to develop in the Pacific, which generally aids the Indian summer monsoon. As of now, the overall monsoon is neither in deficit nor in surplus as June had a rain surplus of nearly 18 percent while July ended with a 10 percent deficit. (Hindustan Times, The Times of India)

After Assam, Bihar, heavy rains batter Kerala

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecasted extremely heavy rains in-- Kasaragod, Kannur, Wayanad, Kozhikode, Malappuram and Alappuzha districts-- in the state raising concerns of aggravated flood situation in low lying areas.  A red alert has been sounded for these districts as they are likely to receive more rains. Last week, a devastating landslide at Pettimudi near Rajamala caused by heavy downpour took 43 lives. The flood situation is further aggravating in the state due to incessant rains, landslides and opening of shutters of dams across rivers. Six shutters of Pamba dam in Pathanamthitta district have been opened raising fear of floods in Ranni, Chengannur and Kuttanad regions. (Business Insider)

New version of the India-WRIS launched

With new functionalities and features, the Ministry of Jal Shakti has launched a new version of the India Water Resources Information System (India-WRIS). The portal is open to the public and contains information related to water resources through dashboards for rainfall, water levels & discharge of rivers, water bodies, groundwater levels, reservoir storages among several others. The first version of the system was launched in July 2019. The portal receives data from many central and state agencies on a regular basis and any stakeholder can visualise the information in a user-friendly manner, as well as download the information in the form of excel reports and graphs. (Devdiscourse)

Proposed Pancheshwar Dam threatens flora and fauna: Report

As per the recently released State of Environment Report compiled by the Uttarakhand Pollution Control Board in collaboration with GB Pant Agriculture and Technical University, the proposed Pancheshwar Dam along the Indo-Nepal border will threaten the existence of more than 300 species of flora and fauna. The proposed project, a joint venture between India and Nepal, envisages to build a 315-metre-high dam on Kali river at Pancheshwar in Champawat district. The report points out that along with having an adverse impact on around 43 mammals, 193 varieties of flora, 30 species of fish and 70 species of bird in the region, it will also submerge 87 villages of Almora, Champawat and Pithoragarh. (The Times of India)

10 lakh women self-help groups help over 45 lakh households during Covid-19 pandemic

Bihar is now the first state in the country to have 10 lakh women self help groups (SHGs), functioning under Jeevika, a World Bank-supported poverty alleviation programme to empower women and make them self-reliant. Nearly 1.20-crore women in the state have got involved in these groups who availed Rs 12,200 crore worth loan from banks to start their own income-generating activities and the repayment is also timely. Even during the lockdown period, the SHGs have benefitted 45.5 lakh households through its various activities like production of masks and serving food to quarantined people and in-patients. (Hindustan Times)

This is a roundup of important news published between July 21 - August 9, 2020. Also read policy matters this week.

NGT bans granting general permissions for groundwater extraction to commercial entities

Finding no merit in CGWA’s plea that stringent curbs on groundwater use will have an adverse impact on industrial production, employment opportunities and the economy of some states, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has banned granting general permissions for withdrawal of groundwater especially to commercial entities. Instead, an environmental impact assessment (EIA) will be carried out to grant such permissions to these entities. The order is going to put nearly 20,000 applications seeking no-objection certificates from the industry on hold. Along with this, the NGT has also directed authorities to conduct water mapping of all overexploited, critical and semi-critical (OCS) assessment units based on which water management plans need to be prepared. (Livemint)

NGT panel recommends revisiting 1994 Yamuna water sharing agreement and seeks report on frothing

The Yamuna Monitoring Committee, appointed by the National Green Tribunal, has recommended revisiting the 1994 Yamuna water sharing agreement between Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi. The aim behind the recommendation is to maintain environmental flows in the Yamuna river throughout the year and permit release of the recommended E-flow at Hathnikund Barrage. Along with this, the committee has also sought a report from the Central Pollution Control Board, Delhi Pollution Control Committee and Industries Commissioner about the reasons behind "sudden froth" in the river. It has also directed the authorities to take prompt action to detect the source of froth in the river and act against those responsible. (NDTV, Zee News)

UP prepares the e-flow pan for six polluted rivers: State govt informs Centre

In a monthly progress report to the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), the state government has informed that the Irrigation and Water Resources Department, UP has prepared a plan for environmental flow studies of six perennial polluted rivers in the state. The six river stretches are those of the Saryu, Hindon, Ramganga, Betwa, Ghaghara and Rapti rivers. So far, Ganga is the only river in the country for which E-flow, the minimum limit of flow required to maintain a river in the desired environmental state, has been fixed by the Centre. E-flow will be fixed for Hindon between Saharanpur and Ghaziabad, for Saryu between Ayodhya and Elafatganj and for Ramganga the plan is to fix e-flow from Moradabad to Kannauj. (The Indian Express)

Fresh Krishna river water indents approved for Telangana and Andhra

The Krishna River Management Board (KRMB) has approved a total of 54.67 tmc ft of Krishna river water for utilisation by Telangana and Andhra Pradesh till the end of August from two common sources – Srisailam and Nagarjunasagar reservoirs. Out of this, 17 tmc ft has been approved to Andhra Pradesh while 35.67 tmc ft has been approved to Telangana. The quantities approved for the two states include the water already availed from June 1. However, the Engineers-in-Chief (ENCs) of Andhra Pradesh did not agree for the request of Telangana ENC to carry forward its savings and unutilised share of water allocated in the previous year. (The Hindu)

Assam govt plans more highlands in Kaziranga National Park to save animals from floods

Under the Southern Boundary Road-Cum-Highland Management Plan, the Assam forest department has sought around Rs 12 crore from the Centre to convert 32 km road at Kaziranga into highlands. The structures, which will come up in view of the frequency of high floods in recent years, will be constructed in such a manner so as to not hamper the flow of water into the park. Earlier to escape the flood fury, the animals would migrate to the adjoining Karbi Anglong hills. However, the construction of lodging facilities for tourists and stone quarries along the border areas have blocked many of the animal corridors. (The Times of India)

This is a roundup of important policy matters from July 21 - August 9, 2020. Also, read news this week.

A crowd of people jostling by the ticket counter at Jhansi railway station in Uttar Pradesh; men and women, some with families in tow, boarding trains to Delhi, Lucknow, Mumbai and other big cities. These are common sights during the summer months at Jhansi, a major town and railway junction. People from rural areas of the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh routinely travel to cities and towns in search of jobs and livelihoods.

Changes in rainfall patterns coupled with the topography, which does not allow rainwater to percolate and recharge the groundwater table, has led to water scarcity impacting the livelihoods and well-being of the people in the region.

For women in Bundelkhand, this means fetching water from long distances. “It’s a never-ending cycle for us,” says Sito as she balances three pots of water on her head. She, like many other women in the region, spends 2-3 hours every day, collecting water for the household. The importance of water for the people in Bundelkhand is best illustrated in the local saying “khasam mar jaae; gagri naa phoote,” translating as “let the husband die, but the pot of water should not break.”

Sito’s father works at a factory in Delhi, and her brothers (aged 18 and 21) plan on relocating to Delhi in search of jobs. The 1.5 hectares of agricultural land that Sito’s family owns, is not suitable for cultivation in the absence of an assured source of irrigation. By 2030, Bundelkhand, may turn into a water-scarce region, says the Vision Document for Bundelkhand prepared by the Government of Uttar Pradesh. This will lead to further migration of people in search of livelihoods.

We now turn our focus to Ghoramara, an island in the Sundarbans region of West Bengal, located around 100 km from Kolkata. The Sundarbans is a mangrove area in the delta formed by the confluence of the Ganga, Brahmaputra and Meghna Rivers in the Bay of Bengal, spanning across the Indian state of West Bengal and Bangladesh. It comprises of closed and open mangrove forests, agriculture land, mudflats and barren land, and is intersected by multiple tidal streams and channels.

Once having an area of 26 sq. km, Ghoramara island has shrunk to around 5 sq. km and is likely to disappear due to sea-level rise and erosion. The island, once home to 40,000 residents, now houses only 5,000. People have moved out of the island, and those who continue to live here are waiting to be relocated out of their land, the one that belonged to their forefathers, but is slowly being ebbed away by the rising seas owing to climate change.

The harsh realities of Bundelkhand and Sundarbans bring to the forefront, the prediction made years ago by climate scientists and experts. Not only in India but across the world, the effect of climate change and disasters is displacing more people when compared to other reasons like conflicts and violence.

According to the World Migration Report (2020), released by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), at the end of 2018, there were a total of 28 million new internal displacements across 148 countries and territories and 61% (17.2 million) of these new displacements were triggered by disasters, and 39% (10.8 million) were caused by conflict and violence.

The State of India’s Environment Report-2020 released by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) stated that there were 50 lakh internal displacements in India in 2019. The country had one in five of all internal displacements caused by disasters across the world, mostly caused by floods, cyclones and drought.

Both Bundelkhand and Sundarbans, separated by 1000 km, face a common ‘climate’ crisis, the impact of which is being felt year on year and translates as suffering for the people living in these areas.

The impacts of climate change are felt differently based on one’s gender and women and girls are more vulnerable than men to the impacts of climate change. The main reasons for these are:

Women and girls are the primary providers of food, water and fuel, which become scarce due to climate change. Women are also on the frontlines when it comes to combating climate change. They help protect the food and nutrition security of their families and communities.

Women and girls often have an unequal and forced responsibility to care for children and the elderly, which makes it harder and more cumbersome for them to leave home. Women displaced by disasters also face an increased risk of gender-based violence.

Social and cultural norms create barriers for women, making it less likely for them to be involved in decisions on how to prevent, mitigate and cope with climate change, including leaving their homes.

As governments, non-government organizations, research institutions, and private foundations engage and work to devise strategies to empower communities, roll out programs to build the adaptive capacities of communities, it is fundamental that we first work towards developing and scaling-up gender-sensitive climate adaptation and resilience programs.

Secondly, programs and policies of the government must better integrate gender equality efforts and displacement considerations in national adaptation and disaster risk reduction action plans. Lastly, efforts should be made to empower women and girls so that they can play leadership roles in better planning and management in times of crises.

As the government, practitioners, and researchers deliberate and plan action on climate change, let us constantly remind ourselves, that for people (especially women) in Bundelkhand and Sundarbans and many other regions of the world it’s a struggle that they face and are living with, day in and day out. It is time to engage and act to reduce their vulnerabilities and make them stronger to cope with the impacts of the changing climate. We owe it to them!

Romit Sen is Associate Director at Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC) leading ISC's Water Program. Working across development sector organizations, international NGOs and industry associations, Romit has implemented programs in areas of Water and Sanitation, Sustainable Agriculture, Industrial and Urban Environment Management. 

About the webinar:

In the eastern, north-eastern and northern parts of the country, the monsoon period is largely referred to as the flood season. However, since past few years, both the urban and rural spaces in western and southern India also have started experiencing floods on a regular basis, which is a departure from the usual monsoon disposition. Despite the variance, for majority in India, floods get defined by a common definition or are observed as a common occurrence, largely triggered by either the dominant narrative, or because of the dearth of factual explanations. Therefore, realizing the need to propel the nuanced realities that surround floods across the country, and to share the legitimate reasons behind floods in diverse landscapes in India, the Water Conflict Forum will be facilitating the sharing of flood based experiences and knowledge with the intent of understanding rivers and floods through their diverse attributes, deep rooted integrity, duties, influences, and transformations (natural and human induced). Thereby, demystifying floods in general and contextualizing them as well. The interaction will largely highlight floods from a natural phenomenon across history and contemporary perspectives, transformation within river basins and their impact on different landscapes and settlements, gendered experiences of repeated preparation, coping and rehabilitation measures for survival, innovations for minimizing flood triggered challenges, and possible way forward.

It is with this intention, the Water Conflict Forum will be organizing five webinars with the flood series between September 10 and October 8 on regular intervals facilitating an interaction between individuals who are intrinsically linked with floods (have experienced floods, undertaken flood related research and advocacy, have raised voices, concerns and mobilised public opinion for better flood management) and an audience that are inquisitive to know about floods in India. 

Register here for the webinar series.

Please download the webinar flyer from below.

IUKWC has put together a set of interviews with researchers from six Indo-UK projects that provide an overview of their research outputs and how these can support water operations, management and/or decision making.

Fully interactive - interviewees will be available to answer your questions during two hour windows

Bilingual - a transcript in Hindi, will be made available for each video

Wide range of topics - the schedule is packed with useful insight into projects ranging from groundwater characterisation and management to improving agriculture water-use efficiency through soil moisture assessments. You will also get to see the latest in modelling for catchment-level management that take into consideration key aspects of ecosystem services, climate change, and prioritisation and investment in water infrastructure.

For more information, please click here.

There aren’t many studies on understanding the socio-economic impact of river pollution, and the handful of those available miss out on capturing the voices of the local communities who are most affected by river pollution. Keeping this in mind, the Tata Centre for Development (TCD) at UChicago undertook a focused social study with the riverine communities of the Yamuna in Delhi, which contributes to nearly 76 per cent of the pollution load in the river.

The study ‘River Yamuna: Deteriorating Water Quality & its Socio-economic Impact: Voices from the ground’ explores ideas that riverine communities express about the Yamuna, its pollution, and impact on their livelihood and health. It focuses on two ethnographic themes: their perception of the divine quality of the river and causes as well as impacts of environmental degradation, and their perception of the impact of this pollution on their health and livelihood, and scope of intervention in river-related decision-making.

The report, a joint effort of the Water-to-Cloud (W2C) team and the TCD at UChicago, also includes insights on water quality based on rigorous lab analysis and sensor-based measurements. This helped correlate the data to the socio-economic conditions, seasonal pollution and water quality-related perceptions of the riverine communities.

The study was done in about 9 km of the Yamuna’s upper urban stretch in Delhi from Wazirabad barrage to iron bridge. The study was conducted from February to April 2019 with a sample size of 90, using a survey questionnaire, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions.

The first part of the study assesses river water quality by analysing quantitative data collected from the W2C project. The second part assesses the impact of river water quality on livelihood and health of riverine communities: boatmen, fishermen, washer folks, divers, priests and farmers. 49 per cent of the survey households subsist on less than Rs. 10,000 per month and 17 per cent survive on less than Rs. 5,000 per month.

Most respondents were aware of the negative health impacts of polluted water, but only three out of 10 believed that Yamuna pollution could have such an impact. This discrepancy possibly stems from the belief in the divinity of the river Yamuna for the majority of respondents. Moreover, about half of those who believe that the river has divine quality stated that religious rituals, on the whole, have decreased over the years due to waning of faith and/or increasing pollution.

Impact of urbanisation

Throughout the study area, wastewater drains were identified as a major source of river pollution. A majority of respondents believed that the river had become more polluted. While some said water quality improved in the monsoons, some found summers as the worst season for river water quality.

In 10 years (2008 -2018), the number of drains in the study area increased from eight to eleven and land use and land cover pattern have changed. The pressure of urbanisation on the Yamuna can be seen in terms of increased urban built-up area. This has resulted in more wastewater drains discharging into the Yamuna.

The river’s water body (coverage area in terms of width) shrunk by 24.4 per cent from 18.05 sq. km to 14.50 sq. km in those 10 years. The built-up area has expanded by 6.62 per cent. The green area around the riverbed has decreased by 54.27 per cent, whereas the bare land has increased by 50.4 per cent.

Water quality

Throughout the study period, average dissolved oxygen (mean value) was below 3 ppm, which is much lower than the CPCB standard limits for outdoor bathing (more than 5 ppm) and survival of aquatic life (more than 4 ppm). In the entire urban stretch of river Yamuna—Signature Bridge to Okhla Bird Sanctuary—a complete violation of BOD & COD standards was observed. Water quality is not up to the CPCB standards for outdoor bathing.

COD values are higher than BOD in all the five segments, indicating relatively higher chemical than organic pollution load. Even though most of the drains are under the category of domestic wastewater drains, they still seem to carry higher chemical/inorganic pollution. Example: Chandni Chowk drain, which not only carries domestic wastewater, but also the market wastewater, which might have various non-point sources of harmful chemicals from different segments of the area.

Though, throughout the river, COD levels recorded mostly under the permissible limit of 250 mg/l, while BOD more frequently violates the standard limits prescribed by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC)’s effluent discharge standards.

Status of WASH and sewerage facility

Forty-two per cent of respondents and their households were dependent on community latrines and 26 per cent of them practised open defecation, mostly in the Majnu Ka Tila area. A little less than a third of respondents (31 per cent) had access to individual household latrines. Out of the 90 people interviewed, only 32 per cent said that they had a sewage connection.

Impact of pollution on livelihood

More than one-third of the respondents reported a negative impact of river pollution on their total household income. They were primarily washerfolks, fisherfolks, boatmen, priests, and swimming coaches.

The fishermen complained that their catch was reduced from what it was 10 years ago. Now they hardly get Rohu (Labeo Rohita) and mostly catch catfish and China fish (a hybrid species). These fishes have less commercial value in comparison to Rohu. During a focus group discussion, some fishermen maintained that they cannot earn enough by fishing, so other family members need to work as daily wage labour or domestic help to survive.

Community’s perception of the impact of pollution on health 

More than half (55.56 per cent) of our respondents reported some gastrointestinal diseases and diarrhoea-related problems when asked what ailments their families had suffered in the last five years.

Most of the respondents who believed in the divinity of the river were hesitant to accept that river pollution could be a cause of any kind of ailment.

Recommendations

To effectively clean the river Yamuna, the study recommends stopping the pollution at its source. For this, wastewater generated from household areas and industries could be treated and recycled at its generation point and recycled water could be used to meet non-potable needs such as irrigating the parks, lawns, sidewalks, green belt on the roads, etc. The study finds it necessary to have easy access to river water quality data in an intelligible form to sensitise communities on the extent of river water pollution.

A user-friendly water quality index could be created along the lines of air quality index to provide a layperson with a single number or colour to understand if the water quality is good or bad. This will help the communities take an informed decision and contribute substantially to the planning and implementation of pollution mitigation programmes.

“More often than not, the voices from the ground—from the people who are interacting with the river the most—are not adequately represented in the policy discourse. This, we believe, has to change. This will happen only when we empower the riverine communities with easy access to intelligible data on water quality and encourage them to take ownership of keeping their river clean,” said Priyank Hirani, Programme Director, Water-to-Cloud.

Riverine communities, who are still involved in traditional occupations and spend a significant amount of time interacting with the river, have rich local knowledge about the river. They should be considered one of the stakeholders and could be given preference to take part in the monitoring and implementation of river cleaning programme at the local level. In the same breath, to augment participation of these communities in river clean-up activities, a platform can be set up as a governance mechanism. It will create a conducive environment to facilitate the active participation of the riverine communities.

“During our study, we realised that these communities are fairly aware of the causes of pollution in the Yamuna and also willing to participate in restoring, monitoring and management of the river. However, they lack an agency to guide them on how to play a role in the pollution mitigation,” said Nutan Maurya, the lead author and also Research Collaborator at the Tata Centre for Development at UChicago.

To better understand the impact of river pollution on livelihood, the study recommends collecting data on the economic cost of pollution borne by these riverine communities in the form of change in income and occupation in a given period. An understanding of the economic cost of river pollution can help prioritise the need to solve the issue of river water quality. Similarly, to better understand the impact on health and socio-economic status, a study based on the concept of well-being, along the lines of a study by Russell Smyth et al (2011), has been recommended.

The report attempts to demonstrate the interwoven nature of river water quality, health and livelihood, revealing the way each aspect is related to one another. It also makes a case for more integrated governance of the river Yamuna.

Please see the full report here

A civic body frees a river instead of concretising it, for the first time

Under the Centre’s ‘Smart Cities’ mission, funds were allocated to the Nashik Municipal Corporation for Godavari riverfront development. However, the funds are instead being used for decommissioning the riverfont project. Ahead of the Nashik Kumbh Mela in 2003, the civic body concretised the river's banks and bed, thus transforming it into a bathtub and severing its connections with groundwater and small springs on which the river depended for its flow. But this year, the civic body finally drilled concrete out of the Godavari to free the river. The positive move has made experts hopeful that the act will set a precedent for a number of similar riverfront development projects and help ‘smarten’ cities better. (Science The Wire)

August 2020 was the wettest month since 1976

This year, with a 26.3 percent surplus of rainfall for August, the month has become the wettest August in 44 years. The total rainfall recorded in the country between August 1 and 30 was 317.4 mm against a normal of 251.3 mm. As per the data provided by India Meteorological Department (IMD), the country’s August rainfall in the last 50 years, when it surpassed 20 percent above normal, was only on five previous occasions — 1970 (26 percent), 1973 (27.8 percent), 1975 (21 percent), 1976 (28.4 percent) and 1983 (23.8 percent). Multiple low pressure systems formed in the Bay of Bengal since August 5 is the reason behind keeping the Southwest monsoon in active to vigorous phase. Although enhanced rainfall activity was recorded this month over south and northwest India, the northeast region experienced a dry August. (The Indian Express)

GDP in the first quarter dips, but agriculture reports positive growth

According to the National Statistical Office’s estimates of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the first quarter, the GDP shrank by a whopping 23.9 percent as against the same period in 2019 which observed an economic growth of 5.2 percent. The results, however, were expected due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the near cessation of economic activities. Despite an overall dip in GDP, agriculture was the only sector to grow for April-June 2020 among the eight sectors that are used to compute the GDP. In absolute monetary terms the sector has added Rs 14,815 crore in the first three months. The current estimate, which includes the agricultural production for the Rabi season, is encouraging given the disruption in the supply chains and the subsequent impact on the income of farmers. (Down to Earth)

Maharashtra tops the list of farmer suicides in 2019

As per the report released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) for the year 2019, with 38.2 percent suicides by farmers and farm hands, Maharashtra had the highest number of suicides in the country, followed by Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Chhattisgarh. In Andhra Pradesh, which has been ranked third, the number of farmers committing suicide increased to 1,029 in 2019 as against 664 in 2018. The increase in the number was unexpected in the state as the year experienced good rainfall and had sufficient water in reservoirs in comparison to the years 2017 and 2018 that witnessed drought conditions. (The New Indian Express)

Improved water quality observed at several polluted stretches of the Ganga river: Report

According to a study conducted by the IIT-led Centre for Ganga River Basin Management and Studies (cGanga), the water quality of the Ganga river and its major tributaries in some of the polluted stretches in Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh has shown improvement during the Covid-19 lockdown. This improvement is being attributed to restricted industrial and tourism activities, closure of hotels, restaurants and other commercial establishments and restrictions on bathing and washing clothes in the river during the lockdown period. The major findings of the study are that the critical dissolved oxygen (CDO) level in the main stem of Ganga river was good enough to support aquatic flora and fauna in most of the locations when compared to the pre-lockdown period and the total coliform count on the main stem was also fairly conducive for daily bathing. (The Print)

This is a roundup of important news published between August 24 - September 6, 2020. Also read policy matters this week.

India has seen large scale rural-urban migration of people trying to escape rural distress in the last few decades. “The urban areas are looked at as the centre of India's development trajectory and urbanism has become synonymous with development, as rural masses drift into the glitter and grind of the urban life,” said Prof RS Deshpande, an honorary visiting professor at the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bangalore.

Prof Deshpande was delivering his keynote address ‘Blearing the rural - A macro picture of rural development’ at a webinar ‘Agriculture, food security and rural development amidst the Covid-19 pandemic: Insights, concerns and the way forward for Indian villages’ organised by the Centre for Work and Welfare at the Impact and Policy Research Institute (IMPRI), New Delhi.

“Around 127 million people in rural India are heavily dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods. Of this, 82% are small and marginal farmers, and 107 million are agricultural labourers. Despite being the top producers of commodities like wheat, rice and sugarcane, India is not self-reliant. A comparison of the growth rate of foodgrain production with the growth rate of the adult population indicates that self-sufficiency is a distant dream. The per capita availability of foodgrains stands at 401 gms per person per day, which is less than the minimum international standard of 500 gms per person per day. The factors coming in the way of food security are road density, ration cards, gender-related indicators, consumer price index, dependency ratio etc.,” said Prof Deshpande.

Prof Deshpande highlighted that the Lewis Framework is wrongly applied to India’s migration scenario, as the migration out of agriculture is being absorbed by the service sector instead of the manufacturing segment.

The decreasing rate of the share of agriculture in the gross domestic product (GDP) is not supported by a decreasing rate of the workforce in agriculture, implying that the carrying capacity of agricultural land in rural areas is rapidly rising.

“Policies have always focused on the development of the industrial sector from 1951 onwards, and yet, we have not achieved the desired growth. Agriculture has always seen a 3% growth rate for 60 years except during the periods 1967-68 and 1989-90 when there was a spurt in growth. Though, productivity is increasing, has the country contributed sufficient efforts and attention to the growth of the agriculture sector?” said Prof Deshpande.

He highlighted that since the 1960s, the elasticity of the availability of net foodgrains to income has been far lower than 1. This is conceptualised as arithmetic availability. Under this, the per person per day availability of foodgrains is increasing steadily because of diversified diets including fruits and vegetables, mutton, chicken etc. At the aggregate level, arithmetic availability cannot be lowered.

While highlighting the problems faced by the poor such as malnutrition, wasting, stunting of the children, Prof. Deshpande claimed that the lack of accessibility to foodgrains is due to the low purchasing power of individuals. The market is tainted with corruption in food markets and the public distribution system. India is home to the largest poverty-ridden and undernourished population in the world despite having resources and availability of grains. The nine states having a poverty rate higher than the national average are Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Odisha, and Uttar Pradesh. 

The Indian economy has faced economic retrogression. Even before the pandemic, the economy was in a downward spiral with GDP growth rates falling steadily. Even institutions such as RBI projected a negative growth rate of GDP. But, the government still hoped that injections of investments would boost the economy. And now, Covid-19 is to blame for the sinking economy.

Even after 70 years of planning and independence, the list of backward districts in the country in the second plan is the same as the one in the XIth plan showing the poor state of things. Now with the pandemic, the blame game is in full force and it is unclear as to how long it will take to recover from the teething troubles we are facing from the last 70 years.

“The dismal state of the public health networks in rural areas is evident from the fact that 23% of the villages in India are without primary healthcare centres (PHCs). Lack of preparedness with no oxygen masks, ventilators, PPE kits for doctors in rural areas is a hidden bomb. The average distance to the primary health care centre is about 48 km. The cities that boasted of having the best medical facilities collapsed under pressure,” said Prof Deshpande highlighting the problems posed by Covid-19.  

The agricultural supply chains have collapsed leaving many people unemployed and increasing the pressure in the rural areas. Severe unemployment may lead to social distress, robberies and theft and increased poverty would lead to more inequality. During Covid-19, reverse migration took place due to lack of cash and food. An outcome is the further casualisation of the workforce where poverty and inequality have increased. The estimated global economic loss is of the order of $5.8 to 8.8$ trillion as on March 2020, as per the Asian Development Bank. It is estimated to be anywhere near 19% now. 

Prof Deshpande suggested that there’s a need to redefine economic contours. The following solutions can bring the rural economy back on track.

• Employment schemes need to be properly implemented across regions to reduce unemployment,
• The primacy of the agricultural sector needs to be brought back, 
• Returned migrant labourers must be settled in their original jobs, 
• There should be an increase in public investment in infrastructure in rural India, 
• There is a strong need for rural industrialisation, which will help employ rural people without migrating them far off,
• Institutionalising MGNREGS so that they will be the sole supplier of labourers for infrastructure projects and wages will be fixed by operators under MGNREGS.

“Two kinds of responses were observed in the rural, agricultural and food security sectors. Firstly, agriculture which is normally taken very lightly by the state and central governments is increasingly being seen as the silver lining during the pandemic. Secondly, with the availability of huge stocks and the fair performance of the rabi and kharif crops, it is believed that there’s no food security problem,” says Prof D N Reddy, a retired economics professor and former dean, School of Social Sciences, University of Hyderabad.

Rural areas have not been severely affected by pandemic as compared to urban. The other way to look at it is by considering the disconnections in agriculture especially with small marginal farmers who continue to be devastated and are in distress. As regards food security, the distress is caused by the demand side of economics, and not the lack of supply, and cannot be solved even with state interventions and programs. He raised concerns over poor health infrastructure which is concentrated in the urban areas, while rural areas are largely bypassed.

“The pandemic has bared our vulnerabilities and shaken our collective consciousness to focus on agriculture and rural economy, the fundamental and resilient engine of the Indian growth story. This must be bulletproofed with vigour for realising the goal of ‘doubling the farmers' income by 2022’ and towards #AtmaNirbharKrishi,” said Dr Arjun Kumar, Director, IMPRI.

“Rather than universalisation of the scheme, it is important to have specifically targeted beneficiaries. Universalisation or increasing the coverage spreads the resources thin and is often not in the interest of the most vulnerable. There is a need to eliminate market inefficiencies and instil confidence and fair practices among various economic agents in the rural markets,” he said.

Others who participated in the webinar are Prof S Madheswaran, Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bangalore; Prof Sachidanand Sinha, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi; Prof Utpal Kumar De, North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU), Shillong; Dr Pradeep Kumar Mehta, Sehgal Foundation, Gurgaon; Prof A Narayanamoorthy, Alagappa University, Karaikudi; Prof G Sridevi, Central University of Hyderabad; Prof Amalendu Jyotishi, Azim Premji University, Bangalore; Prof Balwant Singh Mehta, IMPRI, New Delhi.

“We went through a lot of trouble over the month. By God’s grace, we are still surviving."

While describing his plight, the pain in the 43-year-old Prakash Mukhiya's voice is palpable. He was trapped in his thatched hut for more than a month in floods. Now that the water has receded, he is able to cook food in his house.

Prakash informed India Water Portal that, “From July 4, flood water started inundating the village, rose gradually, and entered our houses.

Since Prakash's house was thatched, water entered the house from all the sides. Owing to the absence of any relief camp nearby and inundated roads, Prakash opted to stay at home.

He explains, "My house has three thatched rooms and there are 14 people in our family. When the floodwater entered our house, we built scaffolds with the help of bamboo in all the three rooms and started living on it. Even the gas cylinders and stove were taken to the scaffold."

For the next one month, the scaffold became their lodging. Prakash lives in Tikulwa village in Mahishi block of Saharsa district. An official of Saharsa district said, “33 panchayats in four blocks of the district are in the grip of floods and a total of 3,36,307 people have been affected.” But, surprisingly, there is neither a single relief camp nor any community kitchen operational in the area where people can get food. As a result, people like Prakash have been forced to stay in their homes, while those who have pucca-roofed houses took shelter on the terrace.

Prakash is an agricultural farmer. He has 10-15 katha of land, on which he cultivates maize.

Ate roasted rice and corn

“We have been eating like this for about a month.” He further said, “There was only rice and maize in the house, so sometimes we ate roasted rice and sometimes we ate roasted maize. There was no flour, so we were unable to make roti. However, we cooked rice and ate after adding salt and maand (rice water) to it as getting vegetables was tough because the way to the market was flooded with water."

“We have lived like this for a month. Now after the water level has receded, we were able to prepare food properly. However, no government official came to assess our plight even once in these days, forget about the government help”, Prakash Mukhiya says with apparent displeasure.

Tikulwa village comes under Jhara Panchayat. Panchayat chief Manoj Ram tells the India Water Portal, “Our panchayat has nearly 2000 houses, out of which over 600 houses were flooded. For a month, the water levels kept rising and receding but now the water has exited the houses, while the village is still inundated."

Saharsa is a flood-prone district as the Kosi river passes through it. Kosi causes floods in a large part of North Bihar every year. This time, the river has caused floods in Supaul, Khagaria, Madhubani and Saharsa and locals have informed that this time the nature of flood is different.

This year, the floodwater is staying for long

50-year-old Naimuddin, a local resident of Tikulwa, tells India Water Portal, “Our villages used to get flooded every year, but each time the floodwater inundation was for only 2 to 4 days, but this year, for the first time in my life, I have seen water staying in the village for a month.”

Naimuddin informs, "This time, incessant rainfall occurred in Nepal and northern Bihar, due to which the region is experiencing heavy floods."

“Due to flooded roads and no government help, we were locked down at our homes for more than a month. We survived on the left-over grains and food in the house”, informs Moinuddin.

Village head Manoj Ram adds, "Information regarding the flood situation was given to the CO of the block. However, he informed that no government help could be provided due to lack of funds. It has been more than a month now and people continue to struggle with floods, but no government aid has reached them. Although a promise of providing Rs 6000 rupees each to the flood victims has been made, none of the people have received it yet.”

As of 20 August, 81.79 lakh people have been affected by the floods in Bihar and 27 have lost their lives. So far, 86 cattle have been killed due to floods. Out of the 81.79 lakh people affected by the floods so far, the government has been able to evacuate only 5.50 lakh people, while no data exists on the whereabouts of these people. Officials of the Disaster Management Department informed that five relief camps each are running in both Samastipur and Khagaria, in which 5186 people have taken shelter. In such a scenario, the question arises on what the remaining 5.45 lakh people have resorted to for their survival.

India Water Portal had reported earlier that due to lack of relief camps and government support, people are forced to take shelter on highways and embankments, under plastic sheds. Almost all the flood-hit districts are going through a similar situation.

Ganga river is in a turbulent state

Since the onset of monsoon in mid-June, there is a drastic rise in the water level of the Ganga river including other rivers in the state like Kosi, Gandak, Budhi Gandak and Bagmati.

Officials of the Disaster Management Department inform that 1.25 lakh cusecs of water has been released from Sonasagar Barrage in Son River in Madhya Pradesh, which will soon reach Patna via the Ganga River.

Due to the rise in water level of the Ganga, water has spread in Diara and low-lying areas. The water level of the Ganga river has been recorded at 48.60 meters at Gandhi Ghat in Patna, which is 11 cm above the danger mark. Similarly, the water level of Ganga has been recorded at 21 cm above the danger mark at Hathidah gauge station and 18 cm above Kahalgaon in Bhagalpur.

Sanjay Jha, Minister of Water Resources Department of Bihar visited Gandhi Ghat and other ghats in Patna and met other officials of the department to review the flood mitigation measures being carried out. However, he has ruled out the possibility of floods occurring in Patna.

At present, the flood situation continues to remain grim in North Bihar. The rivers in the region are still above the danger mark due to which the flood situation is expected to worsen further. Officials of the Disaster Management Department say that the water levels of the Bagmati, Budhi Gandak, Ghaghra and Gandak rivers are continuously rising.

In Katihar, two boats sank at different places. A boat carrying 12 people capsized in Kundi Dhar, a tributary of the Ganga river in Semapur. In this incident, three children have gone missing while the rest managed to swim. The second incident occurred in the Mahananda river, where a boat carrying 36 people capsized. All the people in the boat escaped safely, except for a girl, who is still missing. A team of NDRF has been deployed for the rescue operations.

You can read the article in Hindi here. Authored by Umesh Kumar Ray; Translation to English by Swati Bansal

Many organizations, individuals already working in the field of water have shown genuine interests to be partner in this pan-India programme, Jal Jeevan Mission. Thus, JJM aims to harness the huge potential of the local community through Voluntary Organizations (VOs), Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), social service & charity organizations, and professionals working in drinking water sector, who are willing to work towards mobilizing and enhancing the capacities of the communities to achieve the goal of the mission.

For this transformational Mission's success, it is imperative that Government and private/corporate sector including voluntary & charity organizations join hands together to develop synergy for efficient outputs. To make water everyone's business, mission strives to build partnerships and work together with various institutions/ individuals to achieve drinking water security for all.

National Jal Jeevan Mission (NJJM), Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation (DDWS), Ministry of Jal Shakti seeks interest from foundations, trusts, NGOs,Community Based Organisations (CBOs),VOs, etc. to work closely with the mission as 'Sector Partner'. Basically, sector partners are organizations proactively working in the social sector as detailed in the notice with wide outreach and impact. They are expected to play a huge role in supporting the implementation of JJM. The Terms of Reference (ToR) and declaration/ undertaking form may be downloaded from the website and CPP Portal.

In view of this, services of organisations/ agencies having experience in the field of water, sanitation and hygiene, natural resources management, community engagement, capacity building & awareness generation, education, health, tribal development, gender & equity, etc. are required. The interested agencies may submit their applications in the prescribed format for consideration of the NJJM.

Download the notice and TOR of the expression of interest from below or click here.

People in remote hamlets left out by previous schemes like Swajal and Sector Wide Approach Program of the Uttarakhand Jal Nigam and Uttarakhand Jal Sansthan longed for household-level piped water supply for drinking and domestic purposes. People’s Science Institute (PSI), a not for profit organisation based in Dehradun took up a drinking water and sanitation program with the active participation of local User Water and Sanitation Sub Committees (UWSSCs) through the support of The Hans Foundation in 2016.

Ten hamlets in the remote Bageshwar district now have access to adequate quantities of safe drinking water through the household water connections. Rupail hamlet of Joshipalri and Dubagarh hamlet of Matela are two of these hamlets where the PSI program managed to provide safe drinking facilities for the residents.

Women and girls from the hamlets had to trudge a distance of 200–500m down the hill to the nearby springs to collect water. “Trailing up and down the hill with a drum of 20-litre water was strenuous work. During the rainy season, the path became slippery and the risk increased,” says Mohini Januti (70) retired teacher and treasurer of UWSSC.

“We had to travel 6-7 rounds daily to collect water for drinking as well as other domestic purposes,” says Meena Bisht (30), who works as a village facilitator.

The credit of organising the women’s group goes to Bhagwati Pandey, community organiser, PSI. “Collecting water was a waste of time and energy. Due to the shortage of water, the locals faced a serious problem of health and sanitation. School going girls had the responsibility of collection of water before going to school and on return,” says Pandey.

Village Joshipalri is located about 20 km away from district headquarters at Bageshwar. There are 24 households including five scheduled caste families in Rupail. The hamlet with a population of 162 is located at 1,630 meters above the mean sea-level. Scarcity of water, especially in summers, is very common, which is also one of the causes of migration of people from the hamlet.

Rupail is linked with an old multi-village pipeline, but due to irregular supply, there is a serious problem of drinking water in the village. The quality of the water was also poor. As a result, for drinking purposes, the people are completely dependent on two natural springs available in the village. The problem of drinking water in Rupail gets aggravated during summer when the water from the two springs dries up.

Increased discharge of the springs encouraged villagers

Considering the dependence of the people on the two perennial springs, recharge work such as the construction of trenches, plantation etc., was done in June to September 2017 and again during June to September 2018 in 0.5 ha area. After the demarcation of the recharge zone by geo-hydrologists, about 120 trenches were constructed and the vegetative cover was strengthened through the plantation of fruit trees and roots of Napier grass.

The winter discharge data in Rupail source-1 (upper source) shows 25 per cent increased discharge in one year and 50 per cent increased discharge as compared to pre-project (before treatment). Similarly, source-2 (lower source) shows 25 per cent increased discharge in one year (Feb 2019) and 37 per cent increased discharge as compared to pre-project (before treatment).

Electric lift scheme provided safe drinking water at the doorstep

When a team of PSI, Dehradun reached the village, Mohini Januti and her husband requested them to develop a scheme for 24 families who were facing a serious problem. Gita Devi Das, the village pradhan too extended full cooperation in the planning and execution.

Following the PRA exercises and household surveys, a hamlet level microplan was developed by the PSI team. A spring recharge plan was prepared by engineers and geo-hydrologists following the technical feasibility and geohydrological studies.

It was observed that an increase in spring discharge after recharge and catchment treatment work, would not necessarily reduce women’s water collection drudgery if the water continues to be stored near the spring, albeit in a bigger tank. Hence, a plan for an electric lift scheme was developed and submitted to The Hans Foundation for financial support.

After approval of the plan, an all-women UWSSC was formed in the hamlet. The UWSSC collected 2 per cent community contribution in cash. Two storage tanks of 7,500 and 6,000 KL capacity were constructed by May 2018.

Electricity department was contacted for the installation of a power line with poles and connections and at the same time, a pump was ordered. Both the tasks took a long time. Finally, the pump was successfully installed and the power line installed.

“The scheme has saved time and reduced the workload of women. Now our biggest problem has been solved, we can take care of our health and sanitation,” said Gita Devi, panchayat pradhan and Mohini Januti, treasurer, UWSSC.

Training on water quality testing was provided to village facilitators and members of UWSSC. The results show all the parameters are under permissible limits. Post-implementation surveys indicate 20 to 50 per cent increase in spring discharge during the lean season, where spring treatment measures were undertaken.

Sample household surveys of targeted beneficiaries conducted during the winter of 2018, showed a 15 per cent increase in water consumption. Some of the farm families use water for growing vegetables, which provides good nutrition to the families.

UWSSCs collect Rs. 100 from the 15 user families while 9 very poor families have been exempted from the monthly charges. They have appointed one youth of the village as waterman (caretaker), sowing the seeds of sustainability of the scheme.

Development is best done when it is undertaken by the locals. The initiative undertaken by PSI in these unreached hamlets of Bageshwar in the hill state of Uttarakhand is a testimony to the fact that inaccessible communities can also be accessed by perseverance and commitment.

Conclusion and the way forward

Right to water includes the right to safe drinking water as well. Lives and livelihoods of the rural people in Uttarakhand are more dependent on springs and streams rather than big rivers. Uttarakhand is most vulnerable to climatic risks. Despite, abundant rainfall in this region, the springs are drying up. At present, eleven of the thirteen districts in Uttarakhand face regular water shortages, particularly of drinking water.

The government has promised that every home of India will get water by 2024. The successful case study of the remotely located hamlets at Bageshwar demonstrates how the water can be provided to all based on the principles of social equity, economic efficiency and environmental sustainability.

Since last week, people of Birjain village have been protesting against erosion by the river bank. They are demanding that the government should put in efforts to prevent river erosion and save their houses, otherwise they will continue with their Satyagrah and perform Jal Samadhi (suicide by drowning). Sattore, a flood-prone Panchayat has about 3000 houses. According to the locals, erosion was not present in the panchayat till 2019, when it was first reported. The problem intensified this year.

"So far, 35 houses have been submerged by the river and if the government does not take immediate and concerted action to stop erosion, the entire village will get engulfed into the river," said Inglesh Kumar, a resident of Birjain who has participated in the Satyagraha. 

Saharsa is mainly flooded by the Kosi river, which has been changing its course over the years and following numerous paths. The river that flows through Birjain and causes widespread erosion is a distributary of Kosi.

“Earlier no river flowed through our village. It was only 10 years ago that suddenly a branch of Kosi started flowing from this side. There was no erosion initially, but this time the water flow is turbulent which is causing severe erosion,"said Inglesh Kumar.

Erosion victims take refuge at the embankment

The erosion has completely ruined 35 houses."The erosion victims have not received any government help, except for tarpaulin. They are somehow living on the embankment," said Prabha Devi, the Mukhiya (village council head).

She further informed that at about 100 feet distance from the village, excessive erosion is taking place and if the government does not take prompt action, then the whole village will get submerged in the river water this year. 

“The house got engulfed into the river and it was so sudden that we could not save anything in the house except for our life. We are taking care of our family somehow and have not received any help from the government," said an elderly man living on the embankment.

Concretisation of the riverbank on the cards

In this regard, the local administration informed that soon steps will be taken to prevent erosion in the region. A block-level official said,"Parco piling, using ballast sand and cement, will be taken up along the river bank as this is the most effective way to prevent erosion." He further informed that the plan has been approved and work will start on a war footing soon.

83.62 lakh people flood-affected

With the onset of monsoon in mid-June, floods have been creating havoc in Bihar and there has been no respite from it. Till August 30, 83.62 lakh population across 16 districts in the state have been affected by floods. According to the data received from the Disaster Management Department, so far 27 people lost their lives due to floods. However, at present, the water level of the rivers is below the danger mark, due to which the floodwater is not inundating new areas. An official associated with the Disaster Management Department said, "For the last one week, Bihar has not experienced heavy rainfall due to which rivers are flowing below the danger mark. It is a matter of great relief and we are hopeful that the flood situation will be stable now.”

You can read the article in Hindi here. Authored by Umesh Kumar Ray; Translation to English by Swati Bansal

In a corner of the Kathagada locality in the Parhatiya Sahi slum of Dhenkanal stands a small neat house. Surrounded by a well-tended garden that is planted with fruit trees, flowers and grass, this is Reena Rani Singh’s home. She is a multi-purpose local leader, self help group (SHG) member, Mahila Arogya Samiti Member and Slum Sanitation Committee (SSC) member. Reena is a motivated woman who keeps her home and garden well-tended. The lanes around her house are clean with narrow drains to carry away wastewater from houses. There is no garbage scattered in corners.

Reena is a glimpse of what is possible with the right inclination and orientation. The 45-year-old mother of two has studied in an English medium primary school. She speaks in halting English, “I have lived in this slum for two decades. In that time, I have seen it transformed from a filthy place on the outskirts of Dhenkanal into what you see now. It is an exemplary slum.”

She completed her Bachelor of Arts in 1993 and is currently studying for a Master’s degree in English. “I chose English for my Master’s degree because it is an international language. I want to be able to speak it well as it gives me confidence in dealing with people, much more so than Hindi and Odia that I am fluent in.”

Her affiliations do not stop with sanitation and livelihoods. Reena is a member of the local Van Suraksha Samiti and a community resource person. This gives her additional clout in how the slum should be run. She has used her influence to good effect with the Dhenkanal municipality to secure services that have improved the quality of life in the slum, including getting the municipality to make cemented lanes and install streetlights.

Project Nirmal’s team visited the slum while it was surveying the town in 2015 to start work. The local councillor had suggested her name as a possible resource person to help organise meetings and other outreach activities in the slum. Being educated, able to speak English and very public-spirited, she was a natural fit for the Project’s strategy to make Dhenkanal open defecation free. This task was accomplished in September 2018.

The Project’s city coordinator Pankaj says, “In each slum we looked for people, focusing on women, who were good communicators and willing to take on the responsibility of social service voluntarily.”

Reena joined the SSC in 2015 and has since then tirelessly worked to improve sanitation, cleanliness and health conditions in Parhatiya Sahi slum. To this end, Reena organizes the monthly meetings required by the Project. She has mobilised the local people to demand a community toilet that was included in the City Sanitation Plan and built in early 2018.

In her monthly meetings, she extolls the virtues of using toilets, basic hygiene such as wearing slippers when using the toilet, washing hands afterwards, and handling drinking water safely. She has also taken up menstrual hygiene with women and girls, dispelling misconceptions and promoting safe practices.

Along with SSC, Reena joined the local Mahila Arogya Samiti (MAS), the lowest tier of health service delivery under the National Health Mission. As a MAS member, she works with the Auxiliary Nurse and Midwife (ANM) to provide health-related community outreach. This includes counselling pregnant women to go for ante-natal check-ups, nutrition supplementation, vaccination of children, institutional deliveries and good WASH practices. She is paid an incentive for each activity. She monitors the cleanliness of the local public health centre.

“I learnt about WASH from the Project Nirmal team. This helps me in MAS meetings to provide preventive counselling. It has also helped me to understand the preventive aspects of health as good WASH behaviour can significantly reduce the diseases prevalent in slums,” says Reena.

Reena is a powerful communicator and the municipality and Project Nirmal team ask her to speak at meetings in slums such as Parbatiya Sahi and Juan Sahi. She organises meetings on sanitation and health on special days such as World Toilet Day, World Water Day, Global Handwashing Day and World Health Day.

One of her notable achievements, the community toilet, needs to be rounded off. The structure is ready and local people are using it. There are separate sections for men and women but only the women’s section is in use, that too by both men and women at different times. In just a few months, some plastic taps were broken and the toilets got flooded. The SSC planned to restrict its use to a few local families by giving them keys to the toilet and opening just one toilet for general use. These families were to keep the toilet clean.

“However, we are awaiting a formal hand-over from the municipality to be able to complete this,” says Reena. For her part, she has leveraged her membership of MAS to keep the community toilet clean, buying cleaning materials from its funds.

Making Parhatiya Sahi open defecation free was an uphill task. It took her more than two years. She along with the other SSC members had to often sweep the lanes when the municipal sweepers did not turn up to show their seriousness about improving conditions in the slum. Now, the sweepers come to work occasionally but more encouragingly, they collect garbage from the dustbins outside the slum regularly. “This is a remote slum so municipal officials and the local councillor seldom visit it. The sweeper plays truant because of this,” she explains.

It was difficult to persuade people to make toilets using their own money, as the subsidy under Swacch Bharat Mission is paid after the task once the paperwork is complete. People are poor and most work as daily wage labourers or collect and sell minor forest produce. The local SHGs helped by advancing loans to members who repaid them on receipt of the subsidy.

Reena’s interests centre around children. “I love to teach children,” she says. In her house, she runs tuition classes for slum children where she teaches them English, apart from raising their awareness on WASH and health issues. She gets them to repeat her messages at home, turning them into sanitation ambassadors. The children speak to their parents about hand washing, proper drainage for water and solid waste management. Instead of throwing garbage everywhere, people now use the dustbins that are cleaned periodically by the municipal sweepers.

Reena is aware that not all households are working properly on WASH. Many houses made single pit toilets while a few have septic tanks. From the Project Nirmal team, she has learnt that these will need to be cleaned regularly. Manual cleaning is a transgression of the law on manual scavenging. Therefore, only mechanised cleaning on payment is possible. The charges, at ₹ 800 or so, sound reasonable to her, but she anticipates resistance from local people when they will be asked to pay. “We will have to persuade them, just like we persuaded them to make toilets.”

“I want the slum to improve. I now understand how the system works and will use it to our advantage. The conditions now are incomparably better than two years ago but there is still scope for improvement. Some people still throw garbage outside or defecate in the open. They need to be firmly discouraged from doing so. We want the councillor to visit regularly and attend our public meetings, so we place our demands and have them addressed quickly,” says Reena.

The overall vision of Project Nirmal was the demonstration of appropriate, low-cost, decentralized, inclusive and sustainable sanitation service delivery solutions for two small towns (Angul and Dhenkanal) in Odisha leading to improved sanitation access for all households and integration of FSM in the sanitation value chain, through enabling institutional and financial arrangements and increased private sector participation.

The project was completed in 2020 and was implemented by Practical Action and Centre for Policy Research with support from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Arghyam; Housing and Urban Development, Government of Odisha; and Municipalities of Angul and Dhenkanal.

The case by Nitya Jacob is a part of the series demonstrating learning and outcomes of the Project Nirmal based on Scaling City Institution for India (SCI-FI)’s research on water and sanitation. More on the series: https://twitter.com/CPR_SCIFI

Harpur Bochha is a village in Vidyapatinagar block of Samastipur district of Bihar. The village, which has a population of about 11.5 thousand people and  2349 houses, remained inundated with rain and floodwater throughout the year followed by waterlogging. As a result, not a single crop would grow on a total of 6400 acres of land, which is a part of Harpur Bochha and six other panchayats 

A permanent solution, however, has now been found to free the village from the curse of waterlogging. Although flood and waterlogging still prevail in the village, the inundation is not yearlong as before. Floodwater entering the village recedes in a week to 10 days and locals are no longer fearful. The 6400 acres of land, where cultivation was not possible earlier due to waterlogging, is now utilised to grow three crops in a year. How did this happen?

People's cooperation creates a way

Thanks to the united action of the local people and the wisdom of the village head, a solution to the problem of waterlogging has been created. 

The issue of waterlogging has been plaguing the village for a very long time. This is obvious from the fact that even official documents have demarcated affected lands in the village as a wetland instead of farmland, which implies that its history of waterlogging is quite old. Local people inform that during monsoon, floodwaters entering the village inundated the area for almost the entire year and the 6400 acres land was rendered useless due to waterlogging

In 1977, when the former Prime Minister of India, Mrs Indira Gandhi visited the village, some of the people submitted a letter to her that demanded a solution to this issue of waterlogging. However, no government action was taken. 

“As I remember, this problem of all the year-round water inundation had been affecting us since my school days. Although we took this issue to many leaders, nothing was done about it, informs the local head Prem Shankar Singh.

In 2001, Singh contested and won the election for the local head. However, at that time, there was no such plan to find a permanent solution to the waterlogging problem.

MNREGA comes to the rescue

In 2006, Singh was again elected as the village head which coincided with the launch of Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Scheme (MNREGA). The scheme, which included canal and pond excavation, among other rural works, served as a boon for this village.

“I was overjoyed to see that MNREGA also included canal excavation and it struck me that why not dig a long canal that will direct the floodwaters accumulating in the 6400 acres of land to the river”, he said.

However, the implementation seemed difficult. Two rivers flow near the village, one is the Noon river which is about 20 kilometres from the village and the other is the Baya river which is six kilometres away. During the flood season, it is the Noon river that causes floods in the village so there was no benefit connecting the canal to the river. Thus, the villagers decided to link the canal to the Baya river, that later joins the Ganga river and causes very little flooding in the village.

“We decided to dig a 6 km long canal and link to the Baya River. For this, we required land so a Gram Sabha meeting was called and the benefits of the canal were explained to the people”, Singh tells the India Water Portal. 

"Initially, many people refused to give their land, so I decided that as far as possible the canal would cross through fields on both its sides and equal land would be taken from both the sides of the fields. Wherever this would not be possible, a canal will pass through the middle of a field. People, although reluctant in the beginning, agreed to the plan later,” says Prem Shankar Singh.

Locals lend their support

The construction work for the canal was started in the year 2007. In 2009, when the work was yet to be completed, floods struck the village. Nevertheless, the canal showed its benefits. Floodwater receded in a few days from the fields and the village and people were able to see the benefits of the canal. Following this, locals gave their full support for the canal construction works, which was completed in 2010. Under the MNREGA scheme, 30 feet wide, 20 feet deep and 6 km long canal was constructed in the village.

The canal not only solved the problem of waterlogging in the village but also provided water for irrigation during drought. The villagers inform that the rainwater which gets stored in the canal also fulfils their irrigation needs during drought.

Tree plantation taken up to prevent erosion

Due to heavy flow in the canal during the monsoons and the flood season, a new problem of erosion on both sides of the canal surfaced. 

“Initially, we thought of concretising the sides, but the scheme was shelved due to lack of funds. Then it was decided that tree plantation would be taken up on both the sides to tackle the issue” remembers Prem Shankar Singh. 

“The turbulent flow in the canal, in the beginning, was causing severe erosion. However, to solve this issue, we agreed to plant trees on both sides of the canal instead of paving it. In 2010 itself, about 1.25 lakh trees were planted on both the sides and this work was also carried out under MNREGA. This not only prevented erosion but also increased greenery in the area.”, informs Prem Shankar Singh.

Ponds created for water conservation

The canal was built for drainage, but there was a need for water conservation as well because, during drought, the scarcity of water severely affected the irrigation system. Therefore, digging of a pond in the village was decided.

Prem Shankar recalls, “To accomplish this work, we again took the help of MNREGA and carried out digging of 10 ponds for the conservation of water. The ponds have also been connected to the canal to allow drainage of excess water from the canal. They are now being utilised for fish farming and providing water for irrigation of farmlands."

However, few people in the village pointed out that sometimes when the water level is low, the canal is unable to drain out the water. Parmanand Singh, a local resident of the village who possesses seven bighas of agricultural land on the 6400 hectares land, says, "At present, four feet of water is logged in my field, but it is not getting drained by the canal."

In this regard, Prem Shankar Singh informs that the sluice gate of the canal has been closed as the water level in the Ganga river is high. This is the reason that the fields are getting waterlogged. However, whenever the water level in the Ganga river will decrease, the gate will be opened and all the water will be drained out.

You can read the article in Hindi here. Authored by Umesh Kumar Ray; Translation to English by Swati Bansal

COVID-19 has unleashed one of the greatest human tragedies of the contemporary era demonstrating our fragility and has laid bare severe and systemic inequalities at all levels. It provides several lessons in the conduct of all aspects of human personality, professional, societal, and institutional lives globally.

The rise of populism, authoritarian nationalism and the global crisis of COVID-19 pandemic has a huge impact on women’s lives, work, livelihoods, and entitlements. In particular, the current pandemic has accentuated the already high and persistent gender inequality and disparities in rural areas in developing countries like India.

Impact and Policy Research Institute (IMPRI), Delhi conducted a survey covering 4500 women respondents in rural areas of 20 states during July and August 2020. The survey report was released on September 5, 2020, in a national level webinar attended by several well-known experts and faculty, practitioners, experts and policymakers.

Study findings: Impact of the pandemic on women village makers

Water, sanitation and fuel

The survey findings reveal improvement in safe drinking water, toilet facility and use of clean fuel, but expensive LPG/PNG continues to be a major stumbling block. One in every two women respondents used tap water for drinking purposes; 80% of them had toilet facilities within the house, 75% of them had LPG/PNG connections, but due to high charges three-fourth of the women could not go for cylinder refill.

Education and health facilities

Access to education and health facilities are still the main problem in rural areas. Around one-third of the surveyed women revealed that their children did not attend online classes in the absence of access to a smartphone with an internet connection. Half of the respondents said that they still availed the private health facility, and 80% of them depend on private health care. 52% of the women did not use sanitary pads during menstruation as they were expensive or because of lack of awareness.

Land and agriculture

Land is the main resource in rural areas and about 63% of the respondents have mostly joint land ownership, and around 55% of them owned marginal land (below 1 hectare) that produced mainly rice, wheat, and sugarcane crops. Around 54% of the respondents sold their produce to the local trader, 33% to the buyer, and 23% to cooperative and government agency. Due to the pandemic, 42% of the respondents reported having received less than the market price, and 28% reported facing delay in payments for the sale of produce.

Livelihood and time use

Around three-fourth (74%) of the respondents still depend on farming-related activities for their livelihood, while 36% were involved in non-farm activities. Over half (56%) of the respondents did not get any work during the pandemic as the work they used to do in both farm and non-farm activities before the pandemic has now gone to returnee male migrants. This also gets reflected in the time use survey, and now women are spending more time on unpaid domestic and care work.

Out of a total active time of about 10 hours in a normal day, women were spending 90% of their time in unpaid work such as cooking, other domestic tasks and care work. This reveals that women’s workload in unpaid domestic and care activities in rural areas has increased during the pandemic.

This is mainly due to their children not attending schools and lack of economic activities for women due to the reported high return (76%) of male migrants in rural areas.

About 65% of the respondents told that wages and salaries have decreased during the pandemic, while 44% said that crop sale prices have reduced, and 70% feel that the price of essential commodities has increased during the pandemic.

More than half (52%) of the respondents believed that the prices of products have increased during the pandemic, while more than 60% revealed that production, marketing, and movement have also reduced significantly. Almost half of the women surveyed (48%) reported that they had some debt - 35% borrowed money from landlords, and another 30% from commercial institutions.

Social evils

14% of respondents revealed the existence of untouchability in rural society, 21% experienced discrimination based on caste and 46% encountered wage discrimination based on gender.

Around 43% respondents reported seeing violence against women in their neighbourhood, 10% of the respondents said that there has been an increase in child marriages, 15% reported an increase in child labour, 38% noted an increase in verbal abuse, and 13% reported an increase in farmer’s suicide during the pandemic.

Government welfare schemes

About  57% of the respondents belonged to below poverty line households and all of them possessed Aadhar and voter identity cards. The government welfare package reached to a majority of the respondents as three-fourth (76%) of them received some form of relief package, about 40% received cash transfers and of the applicants (83%) availed work under MGNREGA.

In general, in rural areas, people are taking preventive measures during the pandemic and 52% of the respondents were using cloth masks. But the impact of the pandemic can be seen on respondents as over half of them faced stress about earning a livelihood or contracting COVID-19. Around 55% of them were eagerly looking for work and another 52% needed urgent medical assistance and ration.

Expert opinion

Prof Vibhuti Patel, Former Professor, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai highlighted that every fourth youth in the country is currently unemployed due to reverse migration of men to rural areas. They are now competing with women for work and women are increasingly losing employment. She also stressed that gender stereotypes are playing a big part and there is an underreporting of unpaid care work.

Ms Madhu Joshi, Senior Advisor, Gender Equity and Governance, Centre for Catalyzing Change (C3, formerly CEDPA India), New Delhi highlighted that women being isolated in a lockdown situation have become more vulnerable to domestic violence but also cut off from social groups which give them identity and power.

Prof G. Sridevi, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Central University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad said that women and children belonging to lower social groups face the highest amount of sexual abuse and suffer from malnutrition.

Prof Govind Kelkar, Chairperson, GISC, IMPRI and Executive Director, GenDev Centre for Research and Innovation, Gurugram pointed out the need for data for ownership of resources by women.

Usually, land ownership is in the name of the head of the household which perpetuates patriarchy in society. Unpaid care work is a necessity, but it should not be the responsibility of only women and should be recognized as productive work by economists. Unpaid work has to be reduced with technology.

Raising issues related to women’s inequality is considered as a part of social justice activism and not a part of science, so, there is a need to conceptualize patriarchy in the present context appropriately.

Others who attended the webinar are Dr Arjun Kumar, Director, IMPRI; Dr Balwant Singh Mehta, Research Director, IMPRI and Senior Fellow, IHD; Dr Simi Mehta, CEO, IMPRI; Dr Indu Prakash Singh, Facilitator, CityMakers Mission International; Prof Kailash Tharware, Professor and Head of Examinations, Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics (GIPE); Dr Ellina Samantroy Jena, Faculty and Coordinator, Centre for Gender and Labour, V.V. Giri National Labour Institute; Prof Sunil Ray, Senior Fellow, ICAS, MP and Advisor, CDECS; Dr Upender Singh, Director, CDECS.

Punjab no.1 in overexploitation of groundwater 

According to the information placed by the Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation in the ongoing session of the Rajya Sabha, in Punjab, 79 percent of the assessment units showed the annual groundwater extraction to be more than the assessed annual extractable groundwater resources. Punjab is followed by Delhi with 65 percent overexploitation, Rajasthan with 63 percent and Haryana with 61 percent. The major reason for the overexploitation of groundwater in Punjab is the largescale cultivation of paddy in the state. Along with this, the rains in the state this season have been 10 percent below the long period average so far leading to low recharge of groundwater. (The Tribune)

Country observes a rise of 145 percent in arsenic-affected habitations in last five years

According to data shared with the Parliament, the number of arsenic-affected habitations, group of households at a community level in a village, in the country have increased by145 percent in the last five years. From 1,800 arsenic-affected habitations in 2015, the number has increased to 4,421 as on September 17, 2020, informed the Jal Shakti Ministry. These habitations are mainly in Assam, Bihar, West Bengal, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh (UP). On the contrary, the number of fluoride affected habitations have significantly come down in the last five years — from 12,727 in 2015 to 5,485 as of September 13, 2020. (Down to Earth)

Government declares Telangana a fluorosis-free state

At the time of formation of the state in the year 2014, the fluoride-affected villages in Telangana were 967. However, following the successful implementation of Mission Bhageeratha, the number of these villages have come down to zero. The initiative was launched to supply safe drinking water to every house in the state and reduce the dependency of people on groundwater. As part of the initiative, the state government built a water treatment plant at a cost of Rs 436 crore to provide safe drinking water to 585 affected villages. In the last five to six years, there have been no new fluorosis victims in the state. (Pune Mirror)

Drought prone Jhansi turns lockdown into opportunity by reviving ponds

Under “One Village, One Pond” initiative launched by the district administration, as many as 325 ponds have been revived in drought-prone Bundelkhand’s Jhansi district. The basic idea behind the initiative, which is also a part of MGNREGA scheme, was to have one pond in good condition in each gram panchayat of the district. A total of 496 gram panchayats exist as of now in Jhansi. The coronavirus-induced lockdown had resulted in 11,000 migrant workers returning to the state who were employed in the pond-revival works and till now 1.12 lakh people in the district have received employment under the MGNREGA scheme because of this initiative. (The Indian Express)

Study recognises focus areas under the aspirational district programme

A study assessing the impact of the aspirational district programme (AFP) has suggested that the government needs to focus on areas such as agriculture, water resources, financial inclusion and skill development under the programme. In January 2018, the government had launched ADP with an aim to accelerate improvement in the socio-economic indicators of the most underdeveloped districts of the country. The study, that has surveyed 112 districts where the programme has been implemented, has recommended that the government streamline the survey and collection mechanism, update plan of action based on new learnings, leverage data to design effective evaluation systems while driving targeted investments through partner ecosystems while engaging in customised local level interventions. (The Economic Times)

This is a roundup of important news published between September 7 - 21, 2020. Also, read policy matters this week.

Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan had a low impact in making Maharashtra drought free: CAG

Slamming the implementation of the multi-crore Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has stated that despite spending Rs 9633.75 crore, the scheme has had little impact in achieving water neutrality and increasing groundwater level. The scheme, which was launched in 2014 with an aim to make Maharashtra drought-free by 2019, was lacking in transparency in the execution of its works and the state water conservation department inadequately monitored it. However, as per Devendra Fadnavis, the former CM of state under whose regime the scheme was launched, the mission would have been more successful had the current government allowed its continuation, but it was stopped midway. (The Indian Express)

Prepare environment plan for Najafgarh lake: NGT to Delhi, Haryana governments

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has directed both Delhi and Haryana governments to jointly prepare an Environment Management Plan (EMP) for Najafgarh lake in order to prevent encroachment and construction in the area. Along with this, the Environment Ministry has been ordered to steer the proceedings for preparation of EMP with the assistance of Central Pollution Control Board. The order came following a petition filed by an NGO namely Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) seeking execution of NGT's 2017 order that demanded declaration of the lake as a water body. (Republic World)

Gosikhurd dam observes further delay, thanks to fund shortage

The deadline for completion of the Gosikhurd National Irrigation Project in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra has been revised from 2021 to 2024 due to financial constraints. The project, which had a requirement of Rs 1,500 crore for its timely completion has received an annual allocation of just Rs 500 crore from the state government for the year 2020-21. The reason behind less allocation of funds is the Covid-19 pandemic, which has adversely hit the state financially. Another hurdle to the project, which was given a national status in 2009, is the 50 percent shortage of employees deployed for project work. The project delay will deprive 30 lakh farmers from accessing the dam water. (The Indian Express)

Haryana Wildlife Board approves dam construction within Kalesar forest despite WII's warning

The Haryana government has proposed a dam construction on the seasonal rivulets— Ambwali, Nagli, Darpur, Khelawala — passing through the Kalesar National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary to provide irrigation water to Yamunanagar district. However, the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun, has concluded in its report that almost 90,000 small plants and around 1 lakh fully grown trees will be chopped off for the construction along with affecting the behavioural pattern of the wild animals and destroying their core habitats and breeding areas. Despite the red flag, the State Board for Wildlife (SBW), Haryana has approved the construction of the dam and conveyed that many changes have been made to the proposal and the number of flora and fauna estimated by WII was very high. (The Indian Express)

Green nod mandatory for Purushothapatnam Lift Irrigation Scheme: NGT

Taking note that the Purushothapatnam Lift Irrigation Scheme in Andhra Pradesh involves irrigation and will not just cater to drinking water and industrial needs, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has deemed environment impact assessment and environment clearance necessary for the project. The panel has also directed the project proponents to ensure compliance of the statutory clearances before going ahead with the project. The project which is located at the Akhanda Godavari Left Bank in East Godavari district envisages diversion of Godavari river water to Yeluru river. (Outlook India)

This is a roundup of important policy matters from September 7 - 21, 2020. Also, read news this week.

Only about 29% of the 189 million rural households, in India, have potable water supply through household tap connections (Jal Jeevan Mission, September 2020). To address this difference and deficiency in basic services, the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) was launched in August 2018 to provide safe and adequate drinking water through Functional Household Tap Connections (FHTCs) to all rural households by 2024.

This goal is sought to be achieved through a bottom-up planning and investment program. The basic planning unit is a revenue village, along with associated habitations. A Village Action Plan is developed for each village through detailed surveys. These VAPs are integrated into District Action Plans (DAPs) and State Action Plans (SAPs). The DAPs and SAPs will also outline other critical activities like Information, Education and Communication (IEC), capacity building, water quality testing, and Operation and Maintenance (O&M) plans. These plans help identify target villages for infrastructure development on an annual basis and the budget allocations. Currently, such plans are being developed on excel sheets, as per data and prioritization indices developed by JJM.

The JJM planning approach is largely similar to the erstwhile National Rural Development Program (NRDWP), where the emphasis was on Annual Action Plans (AAPs) at the district level, which was then used to develop state-level AAPs. The primary objective of the AAPs was to identify habitations that needed investment and other program support such as capacity building. In essence, the district level AAPs, under NRDWP, were habitation prioritization exercises.

These AAPs were prepared and priority habitations selected by using data from field and office records and by analyzing the data through excel sheets. The data points were related to access (% of people with access to 40 lpcd or more), water quality, etc. Priority habitations were then selected, based on rudimentary analysis, and budgets were allocated for investments in such habitations.  

The World Bank is supporting the Water Supply and Sanitation Department (WSSD) of Government of Maharashtra to implement a rural water supply program (Jal Swarajya-2), with a focus on improving service delivery in peri-urban areas from 2015 to 2020. One of the objectives of this program is to improve the planning framework for AAPs. This activity is being jointly carried out by the WSSD team, the World Bank team, and a team led by Prof. James Wescoat, Aga Khan Professor of Architecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA and researchers supported by the Tata Center for Technology and Design at MIT.  

An initial analysis by the team revealed that the current rural water planning approach in India lacked important data considerations, data were not mapped, and prioritization was not transparent. Also, data were not collected and analyzed for service delivery and O&M, important objectives of any investments in improving water supply in rural India. Based on this understanding and consultations with key stakeholders, the team developed a refined data-driven planning framework, data capturing tool, and data analysis framework to identify priority villages.

This new planning framework focused on democratizing village data collection with a mobile application. Since most village leaders (gram sevaks) use smartphones, a mobile survey app was developed using Kobotoolbox software to help them collect water service data from each village in the district. The mobile app simplified data collection with drop-down and radio button choices, which avoids transcription errors.

The key indicators for data collection were divided into two sets. The first set is related to physical aspects and includes (i) groundwater availability, (ii) percent of household tap connections, (iii) number of days/month water supplied during summers and other months, (iv) number of hours water is supplied in summers and other months, (v) number of days tanker water is provided, (vi) quantity of water supplied in terms of lpcd. These were used to determine priorities for physical interventions.

The second set of indicators were designed to capture information on capacity and sustainability. These include (vii) O&M related – recovery of water user charges (as a percent against planned amount/ year) and operator functioning and training, and (viii) effectiveness of Village Water and Sanitation Committees (VWSCs). The village survey has been designed to be completed by a knowledgeable gram sevak in about half an hour. 

Responses collected through this method are stored in the cloud and are thus simultaneously accessible in the field as well as in offices at all levels. The mobile app software converts each survey response to a score from 1 (best) to 5 (poorest). These scores help rank village needs for individual parameters, such as percent of households with tap connections in the village, and for a combination of all or some key variables to identify high priority villages.

Villages with scores of 4 or 5 raise a concern and can be potential candidates for program support, either for physical infrastructure and/or for capacity building support. The data was then mapped on a GIS map to get a spatial pattern for visual identification of trends and regional issues if any.

For example, the maps can visually highlight if issues related to water stress, water quality, etc., were for a particular village or a cluster of villages and this can help in finding solutions, as appropriate. Uniform colour codes from light green (good) to bright red (poor) were used to indicate priority in the mapping.

The village gram sevaks were trained to enter the data on all these indicators, through workshops at Block levels and requested to enter data for each village through the app.

The app has an option to enter data even in off-line mode, where internet connection is an issue. Alternately, the Gram Sevaks can collect the data and enter the same on the computers at Block offices, where internet connection is more assured. Once entered, the data were verified by Block and District officers responsible for NRDWP program, and cleaned as required.

This exercise was carried out in four districts of Maharashtra - Pune, Raigad, Satara and Bhandara. A brief note on the Pune district planning is presented below (Singh et al., 2019).

Pune district consists of one urban Taluka (Pune urban) and 13 rural Talukas. The district has 1401 Gram Panchayats, 1877 revenue villages, and 9207 habitations (IMIS data, April 1, 2018). A revenue village was identified as a basic planning unit, as these are census coded and GIS maps are available at this level only. Shapefiles and geocoded Census data do not exist for habitations and GPs (Wescoat et al., 2019). Data from 1566 villages (86%) were collected from village officers through the Kobo tool and were checked by Block and District level officers. A few examples of the analysis for different indicators are presented below to showcase the power of this planning framework. 

This planning framework helps in improving the rural water sector performance in the following critical ways;

• Identify priorities for actions for villages, based on data for each village. These actions could include infrastructure, service delivery, operations and maintenance, capacity building, etc. The current DPR approach is focused on providing infrastructure and does not address specific service delivery and O&M issues.
• Mapping helps to identify trends and regional issues. Mapping also improves transparency by visualizing priority villages.  
• The data allow for multivariate indicator analysis. For example, juxtaposing data on groundwater availability along with infrastructure needs allows for improved planning of source strengthening and sustainability. Similarly, comparing data on percent of tap connections and revenue recovery can help in understanding the capacity of GPs on O&M and equity of access.  
• The time required for entering data for a village is less than an hour and is needed only once a year. Hence, this is highly doable.
• When data are entered every year, one can see trends of improvement or deterioration of various indicators and address critical issues, as required. Similarly, poor water access and service conditions may require a multi-year plan.  Current planning tools do not allow this type of year-on-year comparison.
• The data and analysis also allow for benchmarking performance among the similar type of villages, which can be used as a strong communication tool.
• The data and mapping can also help in developing multi-year action plans that can be adjusted to finances and capacity available.

The WSSD appreciates this planning framework and is working towards scaling up its use in all districts.

For additional details see the open access articles:

Singh, R.; Brahmankar, R.; Murty, J.V.R., Verma, P., and Wescoat, J.L. Jr. 2019. “Analyzing Rural Drinking Water Services for District Planning in Maharashtra, India,” Water Policy, online at https://doi.org/10.2166/wp.2019.086.

Wescoat, J.L. Jr., Shah, Riddhi; Singh, Ranu; and Murty, J.V.R. 2019. “Habitations, Villages and Gram Panchayats: Local Drinking Water Planning in Rural India.” Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development, 9,3: 522-530. Online at https://doi.org/10.2166/washdev.2019.196. 

Authors

JVR Murty is a development professional with over two decades of experience in the water and sanitation sector. He is currently freelancing with the World Bank, 2030 Water Resources Group, Tata Trusts and others.

James L. Wescoat Jr. is Aga Khan Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research focuses on water resource issues in South Asia.

Piyush Verma recently graduated from MIT, where he was a Tata Fellow (2018-20) and SMArchS (Urbanism) candidate. He is currently setting up ManushLabs.org, a non-profit to support social entrepreneurship in India.

Sita Behera, the 35-year-old mother of two lives in the Radhamadhavapura unauthorised slum in Angul. She is the President of the Ward Sanitation Committee (WSC) that is leading the work on making the slum open defecation free. Driven by the desire to improve the living conditions for her children and the neighbourhood at large, she prompted 140 families to construct latrines over two years.

It helped that Sita has a tailor shop and is a member of a self-help group that works on microcredit, formed under the municipality’s urban livelihoods mission. She is well-known, vocal and willing to take up local social and environmental issues. When Project Nirmal’s team approached her in 2016 to lead a local committee to improve sanitation, she jumped at the chance to create a change.

“My slum was dirty, lacking toilets, and people defecated anywhere they could. The councillor suggested my name for the WSC and I helped set up the Slum Sanitation Committee (SSC). I realised the power of collective bargaining and took up several issues of the slum, guided by the project team,” says Sita.

She learnt which official to speak to for each civic amenity – street lights, water storage tanks and sweepers to clean the streets and drains. “The team helped with filling applications for each amenity to build trust and social capital with people in the slum. Soon, we were in a position to start propagating the need to make and use toilets. We plan to ask the municipality for a community toilet next to the community centre,” says Sita. There are nine people, including seven women, in the SSC.

Bhagyawati Pradhan, a 40-year-old joined in 2016. The SSC, she says, has not seen any changes in composition or leadership even once, so the original members still hold office. “If something is working well, why to change it?” she reasons. To her credit is the task of keeping Radhamadhavapura clean. Bhagyawati got the municipality to install dustbins and ensure sweepers clean drains as well as collect garbage every week. Earlier, they never visited the slum.

In Ward 16 lies the Saubhagyanagar Hadichari slum with 150 families. Like in Radhamadhavapura, its SSC can claim credit for securing civic amenities such as better drains, power connections and the main slum road that is cemented. SSC president Chumuki Gochajat was selected in 2016 and over the past two years, has built a good rapport with the councillor of the ward and officials of the Angul Municipality.

She started small, organising meetings on sanitation for the Project Nirmal team to address. Soon she realised the slum had other priorities such as roads, power and water; sanitation was very low down in the list. “I advised the project team that to build trust and acceptance with slum people, we should demonstrate their ability to get things done by securing power connections,” says Chumuki Gochajat.

With them and SSC members, she approached the Angul Municipality’s Executive Officer who eventually gave his approval. They followed through by meeting the electricity department’s officials. Over the months, the SSC obtained power connections. This was a big morale booster and gave them the ‘legitimacy’ to bring sanitation onto their agenda. Then, they started a concerted campaign to make people apply for toilets, as well as to build and use them.

Chumuki says, “None of the households had toilets in 2016 and everybody used the pond behind the slum for defecating. It was a drawn-out process because people work as daily wage earners, domestic servants and street food vendors and could not afford to pay for making toilets upfront. They had a convenient open place to defecate. We have managed to get all of the eligible families to submit applications, though only 16 have completed their toilets.”

The SSC addressed the lack of money by loans from the four self-help groups in the slum, set up under NULM. She proudly declares, “the councillor only visits at election time so we have managed to improve our conditions through our efforts.”

Woman power

Women constitute a sizeable percentage of the multi-layered sanitation institutions in Angul set up under Project Nirmal to improve the sanitation chain, from construction and use of toilets to the treatment and safe disposal of excreta and move towards a systems-driven approach. The City Sanitation Task Force (CSTF), Ward Sanitation Committees (WSCs) and Slum Sanitation Committees (SSC) are the three tiers of institutions to generate public awareness about sanitation, monitor progress and status of sanitation, validate baseline data, approve the city sanitation plan, oversee and approve materials and progress reports by the implementing agency and guide the Municipality on sanitation-related matters.

All these women have a few things in common. They are excellent orators. They have a strong desire to make a change in their communities. They are knowledgeable about WASH, health and civic amenities. They are assertive and confident, gained from the years of support from Project Nirmal.

When asked about the role of these committees, Amulya provides an interesting theory of change. People in slums have special needs that SSCs take up such as roads and power. People in regular colonies take these services for granted. Once a slum gets these services they look like regular colonies and social distinctions start to blur. Economic distinctions remain even if the slum gets civic amenities, land tenure and houses under PMAY. However, the blurring of lines between slum and non-slum areas makes it easier to demand incremental improvements at the ward level through WSCs.

Their next big agenda for change is to secure land rights under the Odisha Land Rights to Slum Dwellers Ordinance, 2017. Urban poor households in municipalities and notified area councils (NACs) are eligible for property rights under the Odisha Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Ordinance, 2017. The paperwork has been completed but the process of transferring the land titles has not started yet. “This will be a big incentive for the laggards to make toilets. In my slum, the land belongs to the irrigation department. Once land titles are given to people, it will encourage people to make toilets,” says Sita Behera.

Improvements and challenges ahead

The slums are much improved from what they were in 2016, says Atal Behari Debata, the municipality’s nodal officer for the Swacch Bharat Mission. In the two years of its operations, Project Nirmal has organised SSCs in each slum with a majority of women, and WSCs in the wards with similar composition. This has helped to leverage SHGs in the slums that the municipality has set up while empowering women to take charge of improving living conditions in the slums. SSC and WSC members have been oriented on community mobilisation, negotiating with officials, technical aspects of making toilets and hygiene by the Project Nirmal team. The councillor monitors how the ward, including slums, is performing on sanitation and cleanliness.

There are more challenges ahead, says Sita. Now people have toilets with a single pit or septic tank, which will need regular cleaning. There is one private desludging vehicle in Angul whose owner charges Rs. 2200-2500 per trip depending on the distance and size of the pit or septic tank. This is too expensive. “The municipality has to bring the charges down for us to afford their services,” she says.

The women are confident that they can mobilise their fellow slum dwellers to demand pit emptying if the cost is right. After a few months of using toilets, says Janaki, they will not want to defecate in the open. Further, spaces for open defecation have shrunk or disappeared. The Project Nirmal team is aware of the danger of slippages in toilet usage. It is critical, says Narusingha, the city coordinator for the project, to keep SSCs and WSCs alive and engaged with local issues that include sanitation. This will ensure Angul remains open defecation free as envisaged by the project.

The overall vision of Project Nirmal was the demonstration of appropriate, low-cost, decentralized, inclusive and sustainable sanitation service delivery solutions for two small towns (Angul and Dhenkanal) in Odisha leading to improved sanitation access for all households and integration of FSM in the sanitation value chain, through enabling institutional and financial arrangements and increased private sector participation.

The project was completed in 2020 and was implemented by Centre for Policy Research and Practical Action with support from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Arghyam; Housing and Urban Development, Government of Odisha; and Municipalities of Angul and Dhenkanal.

The case by Nitya Jacob is a part of the series demonstrating learning and outcomes of the Project Nirmal based on Scaling City Institution for India (SCI-FI)’s research on water and sanitation. More on the series: https://twitter.com/CPR_SCIFI