A quick search for the word data on India Water Portal results in a flood of queries - people are looking for water data - for specific villages, cities or for the entire country. 

This endless search for data indicates two things: an overwhelming interest - not only from practitioners and experts but even residents as they seek to demystify water and hold this slippery resource within their grasp. But, unfortunately, like groundwater, water data itself has largely remained invisible - stuck in folders and files, which brings us to the second thing- the problem of discoverability.

Let us take the example of any hill state in this country, which is dotted with springs. Much of the lands that the springs flow from are governed by the Forest Department. Communities depending on this water - and indeed even other departments that want to work on providing water to communities (e.g. Public Health Engineering Department or PHED) must all work with the Forest Department to understand the resource and carry out recharge activities to ensure it doesn’t dry up.

Today, this does not happen. This is because, even basic information like the spring’s location remains a mystery and departments remain mired in protocol - often recreating data sets (including geospatial information) every time a new programme on water is commissioned. However, data, much like the springs can be understood and demystified easily. It can escape the confines of files and folders and flow - unconfined, to help people understand and build on each other’s work. 

Making data flow: The registry thinking

Can we reimagine the possibility of designing a trusted data store that not only captures water data but also makes it easily accessible for people, organizations and systems to leverage? Can we design capabilities to ingest, protect and use the data in ways that amplify value for its users? Can all of this be scalable yet contextual? A registry is meant to do just this.

A registry is a shared digital infrastructure on which authorized agencies can publish digitally signed (verified) data about their users, entities, or resources (such as water springs). This data set can be granted consented access via open Application Programming Interface (API) for other authorized users or systems to consume.

This digital infrastructure empowers organizations, systems and communities to use the data to resolve their local needs.

Working at scale

Let us apply this thinking to the problem of springs in hilly states. For the sake of simplicity we will consider the following actors - forest department, line departments such as public health and engineering department (PHED) and communities.

Let us examine a few benefits that a spring registry can offer to each of these actors:

Forest Department

• Can maintain a record of the location & discharge of all the springs 
• Can be alerted when there is a reduction in discharge, flagging off the need to protect wildlife through other water sources
• Can optimize funds allocation for soil and water conservation.

Line Departments ex. Public Health and Engineering Department (PHED)

• Don’t have to duplicate the effort of recreating existing spring data when working on new projects
• Can quickly build relevant solutions on top of the Forest Spring registry
• Can open up new data sets for more enhanced collaboration

Communities

• Can gain access to local spring’s data (ex. water discharge) in their village.
• Can improve community decision making - decide how best to use the water, which springs to recharge etc.
• Can submit accurate village level micro-plans for funding.

The below diagram depicts the flow of data from the originator (forest department) into the registry and then to various consumers such as PHED, communities etc.

Creating such systems requires us to understand and design for appropriate ingestion, protection and usage of data. Following are few key considerations:

Ingestion

• Is the data created/curated by your organization, your partners or through the extended ecosystem?
• Is the data time sensitive?
• Can you trust the quality and accuracy of the data? If not, how do you ensure that it is clean when ingested?
• Does the data require an independent entity to certify its authenticity?

Protection

• Which data attributes require encryption and protection when stored?
• Which data attributes require explicit consent to use?
• Who are the actors leveraging the data? What attributes of the data do they need access to?

Usage

• Who are the users of the data?
• What data is being read?
• How and where is the data being used?

Operationalizing a registry

Let’s look at some answers using the spring example itself. When setting up a springs registry, we would need to decide who all collect data, whether there can be a mechanism to verify if they have the expertise to carry out data collection (e.g. did they receive training in discharge measurement), if we need a maker-checker method to moderate/ verify data upload and who consumes what data - with different views for different people that takes into account data protection laws. 

By doing this, we not only make a scarce resource (data) abundant but also create the ability for each of the actors who interact with the spring to become problem solvers. Thus building on a common database and helping distribute the ability for the ecosystem to solve.

Having said that, the true value of a registry is realized only when the quality of data that it holds is accurate, consistent and timely. This requires that there is a custodian of the registry who is aware of the origin (provenance) of the data, can legally host, manage, maintain and protect it for security and privacy.

The first instances of the registry thinking can be traced back to paper record keeping, especially in health care. With the advent of technology, several of these paper records have moved online. However, while this increases accessibility, it is still extremely hard to share and use the data at scale.

The intent of future registries should be to address these challenges by providing open APIs through which digitally signed data can be accessed. It should provide the ability to easily search and discover relevant and contextual information and importantly be available in machine readable format for external systems to access. OpenSABER is one such open-source software that organizations can leverage to build and deploy highly scalable and trusted registries.

The water ecosystem has made several strides forward in ensuring more rigorous data collection and use in decision making. By using the registry thinking we can ensure that this data is liberated from the custody of one set of users and a single programme making it a reusable asset that each programme and actor builds on.

Anand Rajan is a platform advisor who works on amplifying network interactions by designing solutions that fit ecosystem needs, scaled through responsive digital infrastructure.

The UNICEF and the Scaling City Institutions for India (SCI-FI) initiative at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) in collaboration with the Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water Department (PR&DW), Government of Odisha (GoO), and the District Administration, Dhenkanal are making strides towards instituting district wide approach for Solid Liquid Waste Management (SLWM).

As the country heads into the second phase of the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM 2), the district of Dhenkanal in Odisha is piloting an innovative approach to ensuring district-wide achievement of SLWM. Access to a toilet facility has increased manifold under the aegis of the SBM putting India on the global map of sanitation leaders among developing countries.

Recognizing that the outcomes of improved sanitation cannot be sustained without the safe management of faecal waste beyond the toilet, SBM 2 emphasises Open Defection Free (ODF) sustainability, Faecal Sludge Management (FSM), Solid Waste Management and Greywater Management. The state of Odisha has already emerged as a pioneer in urban FSM, and with the recent issue of its state-level Rural Sanitation Policy, 2020, the state is set to lead the path for rural FSM and SLWM as well.

Building on this momentum and in line with the state- and national level imperatives, the Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water Department, Government of Odisha, in partnership with UNICEF and the Centre for Policy Research under its initiative, Scaling City Institutions for India: Water and Sanitation (SCI-FI), is undertaking a Pilot Project on ‘Solid and Liquid Waste Management in Rural Areas of Dhenkanal District’.

The Project will demonstrate two approaches to FSM and SLWM service delivery for rural areas in the district that hold lessons for the state- and nation-wide scale-up of FSM and SLWM services. The first will systematize urban-rural convergence for Faecal Sludge Management by formally ‘plugging in’ Gram Panchayats (GPs) located within 10 km radius from the Dhenkanal Urban Local Body to the urban Faecal Sludge Treatment Plant (FSTP).

The second, focusing on rural areas outside of the plugging-in boundary, will create clusters of GPs for SLWM planning and service delivery, as well as, demonstrate a Greenfield SLWM system in one of the identified clusters. Furthermore, the Project will develop a novel District Sanitation Plan, covering all aspects for successful SLWM interventions, including IEC, Capacity Building, Technology Selection, among others.

The District Administration of Dhenkanal in collaboration with the UNICEF and the SCI-FI team, formally launched the initiative on urban-rural convergence for FSM on September 29, 2020, via videoconferencing. Kicking off the proceedings, Project Director, District Rural Development Agency (DRDA), Dhenkanal, stated, “Dhenkanal Municipality has become a model for pioneering faecal sludge and septage management in the country. Our priority is to extend these urban facilities to the rural areas to improve the quality of life of the rural populace.”

Ms Monika O. Nielsen, Chief of Field Office, UNICEF Odisha remarked, “UNICEF is delighted to demonstrate the operationalization of the policy through the pilot project on solid and liquid waste management in rural areas of Dhenkanal district with the Centre for Policy Research.”

Praising the Project’s two-pronged approach to enabling district-wide as highly unique, comprehensive and relevant for state and nation-wide efforts on SLWM in rural areas, Mr Sujoy Majumdar, WASH Specialist, UNICEF said, “We are certain that the Project will not only enable Dhenkanal to emerge as one of the first districts in India to have safely managed sanitation, but also show the path for many more districts and states.”

Shubhagato Dasgupta, Senior Fellow and SCI-FI’s Project Director, said, “I am happy that today’s workshop will pave the way for the success of urban-rural convergence on SLWM under the committed leadership of District Collector, Dhenkanal, with the active participation of other stakeholders in the district including the Urban Local Bodies and Panchayati Raj Institutions”.

The District Administration expressed whole-hearted support to the Pilot Project with the Collector and District Magistrate, Dhenkanal District, informing that processes are currently underway for signing an agreement with the Dhenkanal Municipality to formalize the urban-rural FSM convergence for service delivery in rural areas.      

The launch concluded with the Additional Project Director, DRDA, Dhenkanal affirming that the Project will immensely benefit the district’s rural population and thanking all the project partners.

For further information and to schedule interviews with the concerned stakeholders, please write to sci-fi@cprindia.org or shubhagato@cprindia.org or hrudananda@cprindia.org or pooja@cprindia.org

The pandemic has wrought havoc on the entire world. Pessimism, suffering, unemployment, hunger and poverty resound in all corners. To survive is a physical, mental and financial battle. And every family and individual has an anecdote to narrate that speaks volumes about their combat strategy, losses and victories.

The following is a compilation of field notes collected from Tamil Nadu in July 2020 during the study ‘Life in the era of COVID-19: Impact on women-village makers & future prospects’ by the Impact and Policy Research Institute (IMPRI).

Blessing in disguise

When the entire world was under the gloomy spell of the pandemic Tessy Therese wished to count her blessings. The pandemic had brought her family together as her husband and children who worked and studied far from home in Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu reached it after some struggle. After their reunion, the family cultivated a vegetable garden and purchased chickens and rabbits to get more out of the lockdown family time. She believes, approaching the situation as a blessing in disguise, gives her the strength to not despair in this hard time. She is better off with money to sustain the family, which essentially allowed her to brood less.

The exacerbated story of unemployed graduates

Voice of a widow Latha Maheshvari from Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu concerned over her unemployed educated sons doing menial jobs during lockdown after losing quality jobs to the pandemic: “My two sons are my world. The educated elder, took up heavy manual labour as his occupation to sustain me and his brother, after his father’s demise. The younger one was almost ready to take up his job after six months of training, but the pandemic blew up all possibilities. In his search for a decent job during the pandemic, he has gone to great lengths, even to the President of the Opposition Party of Tamil Nadu. We hope our plight ends and that the pandemic does not misplace the graduate in an unworthy job.”

Time to set a good example

“Patriarchy has always thrived, but I believed that its vigour would wane with time. Well, the pandemic has proved it wrong. It has turned the spotlight upon the deeply rooted crisis of our society. The time spent with my family has revealed that my brother has inherited every bit of the patriarchal nature from my dad. It seems, the vigour only amplifies, and the victims must accept it as an ancestral endowment. However, it has taught me that change is far from us unless every family and parent set an ideal example for the children,” says Darshini Priya from Salem, Tamil Nadu.

Every student deserves it equally

This story depicts the stress of Jemima Paulraj, a teacher who wanted to provide the best for her students but was bound by the management. A higher secondary teacher from Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu wanting to be anonymous expressed her genuine concern for her students. While the school management wanted to commence classes for the sake of having begun, the teacher thought about the 140 others who have no access to technology to attend class. With neither expertise in handling technology herself, nor a surety that her students would be benefited by the classes, she is perplexed.

“The management must take time and ensure that both the teacher and the students have a smooth experience. Rushing it through brings no good”, she said.

A family too big!

Valsala Bai is a homemaker from Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu with deep concern over the welfare of her extended family—the village. Although the pandemic has reduced her movement, she has been constantly reaching out to those in straightened circumstances. She has been facilitating help to reach those in need of financial and medical assistance. “They come with expectant eyes. I get in touch with officials to make sure that the deprived are taken care of. They come broken but leave happy. Their trust in me has been reinforced and it is a priceless compliment. It is a joy to help,” she commented.

Domestic violence: A silent pandemic

Saroj Vasantha, a young mother, can be seen as the epitome of voiceless women. She feared to even give her consent for the survey and waited until she had the approval of her husband to reveal her name. She was the only one in the village in Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu to acknowledge in a muffled voice the existence of domestic violence. Her depressed tone, shifty eyes, and nervous posture spoke volumes about the apprehension that lay like a mantle upon her head. For her, the violence at home is attributed to financial struggle which aggravated during the pandemic as her husband lost his job.

Hope

Selvi Thangamriam is a widow, who lives alone in a small hut erected on encroached land on the bank of a canal in Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu. She worked from 3-9 am in hotels, fetching water and earned Rs. 200 every day. With the pandemic, she lost her job and had no means to sustain herself. Local families agreed to employ her to assist in household chores. Alongside that, during her free time, she weaves coconut leaves for roofs and makes a meagre earning out of it. The ration, pension and cash transfer are a real relief package to her. With a smile, she said, “we will be taken care of. If not the government, then God sends angels.”

Pandemic—not an impediment to development

Rani Mary, the mother of two little girls, encourages her daughters to be creative and artistic. The 11-year-old daughter learned to tailor all by herself. They take part in local online contests and draw to their heart’s content, after having dropped out of drawing school. Because Rani is not educated enough to teach them and as their school is silent over beginning classes, she makes sure that the pandemic does not hinder their development. While on the one side her husband is struggling to find employment to sustain the family, Rani who is from Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu motivates her children to engage in productive activities.

United we stand

Mahalakshmi Venkatesh is a farmer from Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu who cultivates rainfed crops. Because the pandemic occurred in a non-rainy season, her farming activities have been less affected. She and her fellow villagers work under the MGNREGA scheme during such times. To benefit everyone, the villagers come to a mutual agreement as to when each must avail of the scheme. Consequently, she gets to work for a couple of days and then waits for her next turn for a couple of weeks. The unselfish villagers together are responsible for the village’s survival, even during hard times such as the pandemic. She is pleased to live in the village even when it lacks minimal facilities. 

We rise by lifting others

Anitha Rani toils hard at a cashew factory in Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu to provide for the needs of the family that has been disrupted because of her husband’s unemployment. While she goes out to work, her very supportive family takes care of all other chores at home. She is also an asthma patient and struggled to get medical assistance during the lockdown. While she was admitted to the hospital, her husband had to challenge the police to go and meet his wife. “I used to wait in fear for my husband to come. Some brutal men will not bother to listen,” she recollected. Now that she is better again, she struggles to make ends meet with her little earning, which should also be spent on medicines.

Note: *Names have been changed for anonymity

The field notes compilation can be found on YouTube below -

Gby Atee is currently doing her B.Sc. in Economics and Finance from Ashoka University and is a Student Researcher at IMPRI.

Unabashed assaults by human beings on the natural ecological system have caused the coronavirus to spread in the first place. “While finding a definite cure to contain the virus, any complacency towards the environment would make human lives more unsustainable on planet earth,” says Simi Mehta while hosting an IMPRI #WebPolicyTalk- The State of Environment, #PlanetTalks on Vulnerabilities of Indian Governance in handling the climate crisis amid COVID-19 and recession organised on September 25, 2020.

“Lives have become precarious considering the developments in the last two decades. Global warming has resulted in rapid melting of the polar ice caps. At this pace, water levels would rise by several meters, posing irreversible damages to islands and low-lying countries, including India whose vast coastal population is vulnerable. The vulnerability of human lives has further been exacerbated with the sudden spread of coronavirus, which is increasingly becoming asymptomatic,” says Leo Saldanha of the Bengaluru-based Environment Support Group delivering the talk.

While highlighting the problem with the past responses of Indian governments to disasters such as the supercyclone at Odisha in 1999, Saldanha said that governments have been using emergency controls such as police powers on the ground in response to natural disasters. Questions about public policy are partly normative and effective governance in the face of a public health crisis should be in a state of ever readiness.

“Yet, India’s metropolitan cities are unprepared for disasters as is evident from the cycle of floods that indicate that cities are unprepared even for excessive rainfall. This is a result of maldevelopment,” says Saldanha. Effective governance is needed with its rules and incentives such as enforceable orders, directives or recommendations.

“India’s governance system has been highly centralised since the 1990s with the neoliberal regime that influenced economic policy-making. It undermines people’s wisdom and does not implement the constitutionally mandated plans and schemes for dealing with disasters. The country is struggling to deal with unnatural crises such as maldevelopment of cities due to negligence towards fundamental principles of governance, such as democracy,” says Saldanha.

The government must involve people in the operations of governance. But, this is far from true. The heavily centralised structure of the 73^rd and 74^th Constitutional Amendments that led to inadequate devolution of powers has not allowed full involvement of village panchayats and municipalities in governance.

People’s struggle for transparency and accountability in governance such as the Lokpal Bill, Right to Information Act, Forest Rights Act among others have driven governments to be more open and transparent. The rights of adivasis over land, forests and other natural resources have been undermined as they reject the model of state developmentalism with its roots in capitalist mode of production. Tribals possess a wealth of traditional ecological knowledge which is protected under the Convention on Biological Diversity, known informally as the Biodiversity Convention, a multilateral treaty.

Saldanha was disappointed about the poor implementation of Forest Rights Act 2006, and the fact that the government has been have been doing its best to sabotage the rights of tribals and forest dwellers.

Progressive models of governance have been suppressed on one or the other pretense and this created ever more crises on the ground. Saldanha condemned the clinical trials of genetically modified organism (GMO) by the central government in nine states amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Even the Supreme Court has challenged the move stating that it is against food security because it will turn food systems into proprietorship and become genetically contaminated. This is a highly unsustainable move.

Biodiversity needs to be protected from biopiracy and merely delivering speeches at international forums such as the UNFCCC etc. will not yield desired results. “We all know about the unprecedented forest fires in the west coast of United States and typhoons in the east coast. We may not be aware that there are some 600-700 spots that caught fires in Western Ghats in Karnataka two years back, which the forest department was unable to manage,” says Saldanha.

When the lockdown in India was lifted many industries such as LG Polymers, oil wells in Assam among others started blowing up and released huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Unprepared industries are countering the promises made to the Conference of Parties (CoP) to reduce carbon emissions.

“On the farming front, efforts have been made to monetise farming, hurt people’s food sovereignty and hand over their food systems to the corporate sector. Democratic governance systems are being systematically strangled by ignoring the voices of the parliamentarians and the farmers against the three recently passed farm bills. There is an organic bandwagon, which too is busy promoting commodified organic products that are exotic and expensive. Increasingly, land is slipping out of the hands of farmers to that of corporate houses,” says Saldanha.

Giving examples of land regulations in Karnataka where no clearance is required for diverting commons and agricultural lands for industrial activities, Saldanha termed it as land grab, which will lead to dispossession at a time when natural farming, agro-ecological approaches, revival of pastoral communities and non-displacement of fishing communities should be encouraged. These lands are being turned into cities which in turn are spawning disasters.

Highlighting the research study being done by the Environmental Support Group, Saldanha stated that a lot of resources were wasted in preparing for the visit by Donald Trump in February 2020, which could have been invested in building health infrastructure in villages to deal with the pandemic.

Recalling the Disaster Management Act, which was passed after the tsunami, he underlined that states with effective local governments have the greatest capacities of response, relief and rehabilitation and therefore the government could have established a decentralised response. By 2008, India had guidelines in place to deal with pandemics, but when the COVID-19 struck, these guidelines went in vain. Lessons should be learnt from countries such as South Korea which created local units as a response to SARS. In fact, Kerala must be applauded for dealing with the pandemic.

The pandemic has brought the education of a large number of students to a standstill. Online education necessitated a smart phone with adequate data but believing that every student would have an access to this was erroneous. Televisions having a wider reach could have been used to deliver classes and mechanisms could have been created for the same. The capitalisation of public spaces and prioritisation of public sector needs has essentially meant that the public sector has not been a priority for the center. Mr Saldanha was worried about the status of the money donated by the public to the PM CARES Fund, which was set up to deal with the pandemic. Further, GST was supposed to be shared between states and center but the former has been asked to borrow money, because of the latter’s incapacity to pay them their due compensation.

The world is moving towards an age where infections would be much more frequent and current models will not work. The working model would be one where every village, ward and city is able to survive with their own capacity to cover themselves.

On the way forward, he advised on the need to sensitise the government system to make regulatory practices effective. India needed a decentralised approach where states are empowered and fully implementing the provisions of 73rd and 74th Amendment Acts. Better preparedness and responses are needed along with governance systems that are accountable to the people.

In pre-colonial times, India’s forestlands were mostly under the use of the local communities. Forest policies led to centralisation in colonial times with forestland being subject to commercial over-exploitation for revenue generation purposes. This, in turn, led to land alienation of forest dwellers and an overall increase in deforestation.

India inherited the colonial legacy of forest policies and our forest management despite apparently trying to bring forth devolution through attempts related to joint forest management continues to be a centralised system.

“Even after the attainment of independence, we continued with the Indian Forest Act of 1927 characterised by an overdependence on technocratic management, policing and over-exploitation of forests,” says Roma Malik of the All India Union of Forest Working People (AIUFWP), the first national union focused on the collective bargaining power of forest workers.

Malik was speaking at a webinar on ‘Forest rights and people's movements in India: Challenges and the way forward amid COVID-19’ co-organised by the Impact and Policy Research Institute and India Water Portal as a part of the #PlanetTalks series: The state of the environment. She spoke about how the colonial forest administration used coercion to assert state monopoly and abolish local rights over forestlands. There was an inherent asymmetry of power between the forest department and forest-based industries on the one hand and the local communities on the other.

The expansion of the railways, which needed wood as fuel to run the steam locomotives as well as for laying railway line sleepers, led to massive destruction of forests. “Protracted struggles by tribal communities to assert their rights over the forestland on which they were traditionally dependent began during colonial times, the case of Tilka Manjhi as well as Siddhu and Kanu of Jharkhand being most notable,” says Malik.

Unlimited discretion over forest dwellers

The usurping of large sections of the forest areas, putting them under state control and fleecing the forest-dwelling and tribal communities of agency over their traditional lands and forest management practices was the coloniser’s approach to tribal areas and populations.

“This continues to this day in the name of infrastructural development projects and mining, even almost a decade and a half after the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights Act or FRA) was passed in 2006,” says Malik, who started her work with forest workers in Kaimur by setting up adivasi women’s collectives.

Indigenous groups that lived and helped maintain the forests for centuries have been undermined while speedy clearances were given to projects requiring forestland diversion. About 40 per cent of the 60 million people displaced by development projects in the past few decades in India are tribals, even when they constitute just 8 per cent of the population. “Adivasis became dispossessed from their natural resources as the forest department came to control around 23 per cent of the land,” says Malik.

The conservationist ‘tiger’ lobby in India in its scramble to protect forests dismissed the relationship of mutualism between communities and forests and has been taking an adverse stand on correcting historical injustices against tribal peoples and has more recently attacked the framework for the enforcement and implementation of the FRA. The forest dwellers in the meanwhile continue to grapple with issues of ownership of natural resources and land diversion to the corporate sector.

“The Supreme Court of India has passed an eviction order of forest dwellers and tribes from India’s forests based on petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the FRA just last year (in February 2019),” says Malik. The forest-dwelling communities have been termed “encroachers” and the FRA, otherwise hailed as landmark legislation of post-independence India has been blamed for the denudation of forests. The act sought to restore the rights of forest-dwelling communities over land (to about 90 million tribal people) and the governance & management of forests through decentralisation of powers to the gram sabha.

The act that has the potential to bring about changes in forest governance by transferring individual and community forest rights to the forest-dwelling communities has been put on the backburner.

“The organisation (AIUFWP) was set up as a trade union around thirty years back to work on the land rights of the working and democratic spaces and hence we ensured that our organization was truly democratic with a huge representation of women from indigenous groups,” says Malik. Women leaders of the organisation have taken on the mantle of defending the forest rights of the communities. Post-2006 it focused on ensuring that the Forest Rights Act is implemented in a just and fair manner.  

Malik also added that while dealing with the political parties as well as the forest bureaucracy, there have been instances when she has witnessed complete impunity and a refusal to negotiate.  

There has been a lot of erosion of democratic spaces and the right to dissent in the recent past and the state has labelled legitimate struggles as subversive. But, there have been instances where the organisation has received support in the process of claiming peoples forest rights.

Dispossession of natural resources

The Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MOTA) has from time to time been objecting to poor implementation of the FRA by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF). MoTA has also been critical of MoEF’s attempts to dilute the forest law especially the revised guidelines (2015) for easing forest clearance which limits powers of the gram sabhas to decide on development projects. 

Indigenous groups have been faced with the constant threat of losing their lands, livelihoods and forests to development projects, which are initiated without proper consent of the gram sabhas. The state has invoked its power of eminent domain to acquire lands for development projects without consideration of laws such as the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LARR) Act 2013, Forest Rights Act 2006 and the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 among others.

“The Singrauli project of NTPC in Sonbhadra generates 2000 MW while hundreds of villages did not get electricity in the forested areas of the district. Free, prior and informed consent was not taken for diverting land for these projects and any dissent was considered as disruptive by the state. Environment regulations that called for public hearings to allow space for peoples opinion while setting up any development project were spurned by the forest bureaucracy in the name of ‘public’ purpose,” says Malik.

Malik ended by highlighting the need for political will to recognize the rights of forest-dwelling and tribal communities over their traditional lands and forest management practices.

The pandemic and lockdown measures have had a drastic impact on a large population of poor and marginalised communities, causing loss of livelihoods and employment, food insecurity and socio-economic distress. While vulnerabilities, atrocities and injustices faced by forest communities due to forest, conservation and economic policies have increased during the pandemic, yet examples indicate that these communities have coped with the crisis with remarkable resilience.

Hundreds of examples of Adivasi and forest dweller communities’ remarkable resilience in coping with the crisis have also been reported, particularly where they have been legally empowered, as per a report by a team of independent researchers as part of Community Forest Rights (CFR) Learning and Advocacy and Vikalp Sangam initiative.

This has been most evident in areas where land and forest rights have been recognised under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006 and Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act (PESA), 1996. Recognition of these rights in many cases has led to overcoming constraints and crises situations. The report titled ‘Community forest rights & the pandemic: Gram Sabhas lead the way’ attempts to document some of these examples that can help us in understanding the coping mechanisms of communities during times of wide-scale distress.

Released on October 2, the report says, “local communities and gram sabhas better understand the local complexities than local administrations while dealing with a crisis as presented by COVID-19, and respond faster especially when empowered by FRA.”

Lack of tenure security has emerged as one of the major reasons for the vulnerable situation of the communities.

Additionally, certain pre-existing conditions in tribal areas such as severe shortage and lack of basic healthcare facilities, lack of healthcare professionals, lack of information and awareness, breakdown of traditional health care systems, among others have created greater difficulties and made tribal areas more susceptible to the pandemic.

In most areas, the lockdown has seriously affected the local livelihoods of the communities. Nearly 100 million forest dwellers depend on various kinds of forest produce for food, shelter, medicines and cash income. The collection season for these, however, is mainly in the months from April to June which coincided exactly with the lockdown.

Protecting CFR lands

The report provides an account of a cluster of 24 Adivasi (mostly Vasava tribe) villages that are a part of the Shoolpaneshwar sanctuary in Narmada district of Gujarat. After a protracted struggle for several decades with the Forest Department and a Paper Mill factory, the enactment of FRA led to the receipt of titles for the entire forest patch by these village gram sabhas for all the Community Forest Rights claims. These titles observe all conditions of the FR Act and Rules.

After they got the CFR titles, the gram sabha again elected new Community Forest Rights Management Committees (CFRMCs), each with at least one-third women as members. During the months of mid-March to mid-June 2020, most of the families lost significant incomes from labour and sale of rabi crop. There was a substantial loss due to inability to sell non-timber forest products from March to June which are important months for collection or harvesting of a variety of Minor Forest Produce (MFP). Neither the Forest Development Corporation nor the gram sabhas could complete the process for auction/sale of tendu leaves.

While the lockdown resulted in major financial losses, this was also the first time when the gram sabhas were set to be a decentralized authority. In each village, the CFRMC members and other village leaders identified families that were starving due to no income and provided ration to them.

The CFRMC members of some gram sabhas took initiatives and initiated land levelling work on each family’s private or FRA land from their gram sabha funds. They also formed small patrolling groups and protected their CFR lands, as they perceived there might be more threats to the forests during this severe time.

In another case, the report details how the gram sabhas in Rajnandgaon, Chhattisgarh, initiated a holistic Covid-19 governance plan. “The local administration praised and supported the plans of the gram sabhas that encouraged local and forest-based food security, thereby preventing crowding in market places. We can see that gram sabhas created plans around forest protection and conservation, minor forest produce collection and sales, food security and distribution and livelihood management,” the report says.

Gram duts play a key role in Baiga Chak

The report shows how in Baiga Chak, an area of dense forests primarily inhabited by the Baiga Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) the communities were initially confused when the lockdown was announced, as they were unclear as to what it meant. They had with the support of the Gramdut Karyakram and Jangal Adhyayan Mandal, two campaigns working on rights-based awareness towards recognition of individual forest rights since 2008 and on the legal recognition of CFRs since 2017.

Currently, 10 gram sabhas of Dindori block have their documents and evidence ready to claim CFR, when the lockdown was announced. Between March 24 to April 29, there was not much support or hardly any information that reached Baiga communities about the COVID-19 lockdown. The campaign of volunteers, health workers and panchayat approached the District Collector of Dindori on April 29 and demanded that they be allowed to carry out support work in the district.

They made sure that communities got rations for three months and that radios and other systems were put in place to provide isolated villages with information about the health and other implications of the lockdown.

The campaign also worked to communicate the issues of communities directly with the Tehsildars and District Collector. From May 15 onwards, as migrant workers returned to the villages, the campaign demanded that people be quarantined in the district headquarters itself. At the gram sabha level, many villages put up barricades as there was a fear of outsiders coming into their villages through the forests, which are contiguous with the Chhattisgarh border. Women played the leading role in the gram sabhas, organising systems to work with social distancing.

Women ensured that when they went to fill water at springs, hand pumps and pipelines that there was no overcrowding. During ceremonies of death, birth or weddings, women ensured that there was social distancing maintained when visiting or supporting the necessary spiritual ceremonies. At ration shops, the women ensured that each hamlet had a specific day and time for collection in order to guarantee no overcrowding at the shops.

Pratibha Shinde, a member of Lok Samanvay Pratisthan, a Nandurbar, Maharashtra based NGO provides an account of reduction in migration ever since getting CFR recognition. She adds, “During the Covid-19 lockdown, the villagers had livelihood: in the collection of forest produce, tree plantation through Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and building ponds and water harvesting for irrigation and other purposes through the CFR management committees.”

In Gondia, Maharashtra, close to 50 gram sabhas are organised as a federation, who guaranteed competitive prices and bonus for the communities for their MFP collection even during a crisis. The federation of 29 villages earned Rs 2.5 crore by selling tendu leaves while managing everything themselves and taking precautions against the spread of Covid-19.

The case studies present examples which may lead us to an understanding that community empowerment, particularly by ensuring tenure security and devolving natural resource governance and management power, can restore ecosystems, create sustainable economies and community resilience to cope with the natural and human-induced calamities such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Water quality of Ganga river remained grim during lockdown: CPCB

According to the latest report of Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the Ganga river water quality did not improve and rather deteriorated at many stretches during the 68-day lockdown imposed from March 25, owing to the Covid-19 pandemic. The reason behind the water quality deterioration could be the discharge of untreated or partially treated sewage coupled with negligible seasonal flow, which increased the concentration of pollution with no freshwater discharges from the upstream. The report, however, recorded an improvement in water quality of seven out of 19 major rivers in April as compared to the period prior to the lockdown. (Hindustan Times)

Mumbai tops in environmental offences for the second consecutive year

According to the National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) latest report, Mumbai recorded the highest number of offences under the Environment (Protection) Act (EPA), 1986, in 2019 among 19 major Indian cities. Mumbai is followed by Hyderabad, Nagpur and Chennai. In the backdrop of the report, Mumbai city collector has booked two cases, the first involving wanton mangrove destruction by alleged dumping of illegal debris by Indian Army to reclaim land along the periphery of Sagarmatha club in Navy Nagar Colaba and the second is regarding dumping of debris and encroachments across an 80-acre wetland in Wadala. (Hindustan Times)

School toilets built by PSUs in a sorry state: CAG

As per the survey conducted by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), 75 percent of the toilets constructed by central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) in government schools were not maintained hygienically while 72 percent had no running water and 30 percent were not in use due to damages and other reasons. In 2014, the project was launched for the construction of school toilets, in which about 53 CPSEs participated and 1,30,703 toilets were built at the cost of Rs 2,162 crore. The survey which picked up 2,695 toilets for a sample study found that out of 2,695 toilets, proper maintenance or sanitation was not available in 1,812 toilets. (The Times of India)

Contrary to FSI’s findings, NSO observes forest decline in the country

According to a report on environmental accounts released by the National Statistical Office (NSO), between 2011-12 and 2015-16, the built-up area in the country had increased by 2.39 percent while the forest area declined by 1.09 percent. During the same period, the area under inland wetlands had dropped by 6.9 percent and a 14.32 percent decline in barren or wasteland has been recorded. The NSO’s analysis is in contradiction to the Forest Survey of India’s (FSI) report of last year which had shown an improvement in the country’s forest cover. As per officials, the reason for this difference could be the way in which FSI and the NRSC define forests. (Hindustan Times)

Over 70 hot springs in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh identified for electricity generation

Scientists of Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology (WIHG) Dehradun, have identified over 70 hot springs in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh with a potential to generate electricity. Of the 40 hot springs that have been identified in Uttarakhand, 50 percent have electricity generation capabilities while further studies are being conducted on the rest of the hot springs. The status of power generation potential of hot springs identified in Himachal is also similar. The exercise to explore the power generating capacity of hot springs at such a scale in the region is the first of its kind. (Hindustan Times)

This is a roundup of important news published between September 22 – October 5, 2020. Also read policy matters this week.

Revised guidelines for groundwater use notified

Centre has issued revised guidelines for groundwater use that prohibit new industries and mining projects in over-exploited zones. The new guidelines mandate existing industries, commercial units and big housing societies to take ‘no objection certificate’ (NOC) under expanded compliance conditions. Unlike the old provisions where the NOC holders just had to pay a nominal lumpsum amount, the new conditions have set forth paying the groundwater abstraction and restoration charges based on the quantum of extraction. However, the agriculture sector and the individual domestic consumers drawing less than 10 cum/day of groundwater have been exempted from taking NOC, under the revised guidelines. (The Times of India)

Potable water supply in schools: A 100 days campaign launched

The Ministry of Jal Shakti has launched a 100-day campaign to ensure potable water supply in all schools and anganwadi centres across the country under the Jal Jeevan Mission. Taking note of water contamination causing serious health issues, the campaign has been launched to provide safe water to children through tap water connections as children are the most susceptible to water-borne diseases. In order to make the time-bound campaign a public movement, it demands concerted efforts from various departments. (The Economic Times)

Set up ETPs to address gaps in sewage treatment: NGT to states and UTs

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has ordered all the states and union territories (UTs) to address gaps in generation and treatment of sewage or effluents by ensuring setting up of a requisite number of functional Effluent Treatment Plants (ETP), Sewage Treatment Plants (STP) and Common and Combined Effluent Treatment Plants (CETP). The order has come after the tribunal observed that the timeline for the commissioning of STPs has long passed and no action against non-compliance has been taken. The NGT has also directed that the unutilised capacity of the existing STPs may be utilised expeditiously and the states/ UTs may ensure that the CETP, ETPs and STPs meet the laid down norms and remedial action be taken wherever norms are not met. (Business World)

NABARD earmarks Rs 800 crore for government’s WASH programme for FY 2020-21

National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has announced a special refinance facility to support the government's Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programme and has earmarked Rs 800 crore for this purpose for the year 2020-21. The aim behind the move is to promote sustainable and healthy lifestyle in rural areas. While acting as a boost to the Swachh Bharat Mission, the funding will support eligible activities such as construction, repairing, enlarging of household toilets or converting an existing toilet to an accessible family toilet. (Outlook)

NGT strict over muck dumping in Chenab river

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has ordered the State Pollution Control Board (PCB) to proceed with coercive measures, including assessment and recovery of compensation for the damage and initiating prosecution against the violators of environmental norms and dumping muck in Chenab River. The violators in the case are the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) and its contractors that are involved in dumping muck in the Chenab river in the course of four laning of National Highway from Udhampur to Banihal in Jammu and Kashmir. While directing remedial action, the tribunal had constituted a Monitoring Committee (MC) to provide an independent report on the matter. (Business World)

This is a roundup of important policy matters from September 22 – October 5, 2020. Also, read news this week.

There is a disquieting hush across the world as the linkage between the planet’s health and human well-being became pronounced during the times of the pandemic. The deepening socio-economic and ecological crises caused by patterns of production and consumption are being increasingly recognised.

“The recovery plan by governments to deal with the health and economic impacts of COVID-19 should not be premised on ‘business as usual’ but on alternative approaches that are sustainable and integrate ecological protection with tackling inequality,” says Ashish Kothari, Founder-member of Kalpavriksh, Pune.

Kothari was speaking at a webinar on ‘Eco-swaraj: Towards a rainbow recovery for justice and sustainability’ co-organised by the Impact and Policy Research Institute and India Water Portal as a part of the #PlanetTalks series: The state of the environment.

He spoke about the renewed debates by the political mainstream in Europe and in US such as the one proposed by Bernie Sanders, democratic presidential contender - the decade of the Green New Deal (GND) that proposes decarbonisation. Government and industry are expected to move towards a reset to build a sustainable, inclusive economy, revitalise industry and preserve vital biodiversity systems as per the GND.

“The move that considers pathways to a more just, sustainable future considers the climate and employment crises at the centre of economic recovery,” says Kothari.

Eco-swaraj or radical ecological democracy

Kothari shared the need to build on the emerging concept of ‘Eco-swaraj’ or radical ecological democracy considering that COVID-19 has brought us at a critical political, economic and ecological juncture in our history.

“The current model of development has put a strain on ecological resilience; endangered natural resource-based livelihoods and has produced glaring poverty and economic inequalities. The top 8 billionaires in the world have wealth equivalent to 50% of the world’ population, while the richest 20% have 83% of the world’s income. We are rapidly approaching a tipping point as violence against nature, communities and cultures is on the rise. COVID-19 and the related global crisis have provided an excuse for more authoritarian and corporate profits, or opportunity for systemic transformation towards justice, equity and sustainability,” says Kothari.

Resistance to statist, capitalist, patriarchal, casteist and human-centred worldviews are part of the fundamental rethinking of the human project and the search for sustainable and equitable alternatives. Eco-swaraj can draw lessons from many grassroots initiatives and diverse strands of resistance that have sprung up in South Asia and the rest of the world.

Kothari shared the example of Deccan Development Society in Sangareddy district of Telangana where thousands of women struggling with food security problem collectivised to form sanghams, or self-help groups. They came up with solutions by reviving traditional crops such as millet, pulses, oilseeds and wild greens suited to the area.

They are now working on securing women’s land rights, reviving traditional agricultural diversity/ practices (millets), doing organic farming and creating community grain banks. The sangham members helped the poor and marginalized sections brave the coronavirus lockdown by donating 20,000 kilograms of grains to supply nutritious millet porridge in the villages.

Kothari discussed an initiative from Gadchiroli, Maharashtra called the ‘Maha Gramsabha’ that provides an alternative vision of direct democracy in the region. The federation of 90 villages has been working on stopping mining, sustainable livelihoods, forest rights and conservation, local governance, women’s empowerment and cultural identity. 

The residents' collectives of Bhuj in western Gujarat that come up with their own plans to manage waste and drinking water are yet another example of trying to make a dent in entrenched institutions and mindsets. “The work supported by Homes in the City covers water self-reliance, solid waste management, sanitation, re-commoning of spaces, livelihoods and dignified housing of poor,” says Kothari.

Embracing radical ecological democracy would require amplifying such efforts whose relevance has been amply demonstrated during the pandemic.

A rainbow recovery

There are several debates on the policy responses necessary to recover and more broadly on what a post-COVID world should look like. Kothari suggested the need to embrace a recovery that is not just based on restricted notions of green or red but is multi-coloured and founded on creating dignified livelihoods, protecting nature, ensuring justice for all, and reviving solidarity.

This new framework would learn from local indigenous peoples territorial struggles and notions of well-being from India and other parts of the world and would be constructed on strong ethical foundation degrowth, commons, solidarity economy, biocivilisation, ecosocialism and ecofeminism.

With its strong democratic impulse, the rainbow recovery seeks to provide space to the most marginalised people in decision making. “Embracing radical ecological democracy will require achieving human well-being through empowering all citizens and communities to participate in decision-making. It would also need to ensure socio-economic equity and justice and respect the limits of the earth,” says Kothari.

“Substantial public investments coupled with serious wealth redistribution are needed as pointed out by economist Prabhat Patnaik - 2% wealth tax along with 33% inheritance tax on the richest 1% of India could generate more revenue than the total recovery package announced in May 2020. It would need substantial investments in public health, education, housing, transportation and other basic needs,” says Kothari.

The five values on which the transformation will be built are – radical democracy; economic democracy; social justice and well-being; culture and knowledge diversity; and ecological resilience and wisdom.

In Kerala, around half the urban population and 80% of the rural population depend on open wells on their domestic water needs. But in the last decade, the majority of observatory wells recorded an average annual decline of half a meter. Groundwater is a common-pool resource that is vulnerable to exploitation, at both individual and community level, and India is its largest extractor. A decline in water level in 54% of India's groundwater wells that could result in a national groundwater crisis was estimated in 2018.

The present system of groundwater management does not enable democratic cooperation between states and the centre for tackling the challenge of overexploitation. In such a context, a decentralised, grassroots level approach to groundwater challenge is essential for equitable, hyperlocal groundwater management.

As part of an ongoing study at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), we visited five locations in Kerala (coastal regions in Ernakulam and hinterlands of Thrissur) in February 2020, to understand the efficacy and differential impact of two grassroots techniques: the Rainwater Syringe Technique developed by KJ Antojy, and the Mazhapolima well recharge programme. Our study collected 10 samples from the sites where the techniques are installed along with a corresponding supporting sample (water sources like wells or ponds located within 200 metres from the site) for each to measure salinity and Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) levels to verify the impact of the technique.

We found that both these techniques which consider local parameters rejuvenate not only the water table and the surrounding environment but also the region’s aquifers, underlying the importance of understanding the local hydrogeological condition to ensure a balance between extraction rates and recharge patterns.

The rainwater syringe technique for deep aquifers

Ramesh (name changed), who manages an orphanage and a care home at Kochi that is located near the backwaters, was facing issues with saline groundwater. They depended on the municipal water supply for drinking and cooking and used water from their well and ponds for irrigating their garden with tamarind trees, mango trees, herbs and seasonal vegetables.

In 2012, they installed the rainwater syringe unit that was developed by K J Antojy in the late 1980s. “Ponds never went dry after this. The iron content has drastically reduced. There is enough water to use for irrigation,” says Ramesh, adding that the vegetation yield of tamarind and seasonal vegetables also almost doubled.

The CGWB Technical Report 2013 highlights that the Vaikom aquifers (coastal sedimentary aquifers which cover most of Ernakulam district) are saline except small pockets of Narakal and Kumbalangi, which have freshwater in the deeper aquifer. The rest of Ernakulam district, covered by Warkalai aquifer, is also completely saline.  

The rainwater syringe technique uses a pressurised motor pump or the gravity method to inject rainwater into the deeper aquifers, depending on the dynamics of local aquifers. As a result, the pressurised technique acts not just as a rainwater harvesting unit but can also create a ‘freshwater lens’.

Vishwanath Srikanthaiah, water and rainwater conservation expert from Bengaluru, confirmed that when rainwater gets injected into an aquifer which contains saline water, it neither mixes nor dilutes the saline water, which is usually denser than rainwater. Instead, it creates a new freshwater lens. This is what we observed at Kochi happening with the rainwater syringe unit, where the deeper aquifers became storage spaces for rainwater.

Mazhapolima well recharge for restoring the water table

The district of Thrissur in Kerala has around 4.5 lakh wells, and nearly three-fourths of the state’s population depends on dug well for domestic water needs. Usually, around 70% of the dug wells dry up during summer.

At Orchard Diens, a gated residential community in Thrissur which did not have a municipal water connection since its establishment in 1998, Rani noticed in 2018 that the borewells her household relied on for regular water supply were drying up. Her neighbours were also found to be extracting water through other borewells, and all this overexploitation led to the depletion of the groundwater.

Facing severe water shortage, they sought the help of the Mazhapolima water recharge programme to establish a regular water source, by directing rainwater from rooftops to household dug wells. A community-level rainwater harvesting structure was installed in 2019 by Mazhapolima technician Ramdas, which captures rainwater from the roof of the clubhouse and diverts it to an open sump through a series of infiltration trenches. The sump water was further used for recharging the open dug well, eventually restoring the shallow aquifers.

Within a year of installation, our study found that the technique helped restore the shallow aquifers of the region through the recharge of rainwater with a combination of infiltration trenches and an open well.

The results of Mazhapolima projects indicate that the extent of water level fluctuation has drastically reduced in the low and midland areas¹. Salinity and TDS levels were found to have reduced through the infiltration of rainwater. We observed that this technique worked even in the geography of crystalline rocks, where the aquifers are inconsistently distributed.

Local context played a key role in how the techniques were developed

Antojy’s Rainwater Syringe technique seemed to work best in coastal areas where households depend on open wells for domestic use. Usually, water in the open dug wells is high in saline content and therefore abandoned. In the study, TDS levels in most of the cases had significantly reduced as compared to its supporting samples. Additionally, though these are samples from coastal areas of Ernakulam, salinity was found to be low in both the study sample and supporting, sample which suggests that the rainwater injection is also affecting neighbouring open wells. The displacement of saline water due to the technique can thus have a long-lasting effect on the region’s water quality.

The Mazhapolima technique worked well in lowland and midland areas, where households could easily direct rainwater to open wells using sand, gravel and charcoal filtering mechanisms. Salinity is already generally low in midland areas of Kerala, and the technique appeared to have a drastic impact on TDS levels, which were lower in the study sample than supporting samples. The technique was found to be cost-effective and most suited to curb the water quality of open dug wells in the households of Thrissur Corporation.

The study reiterated the importance of hyperlocal solutions to the management of groundwater recharging techniques. While the Mazhapolima technique has managed to restore the water table through the recharge of shallow aquifers, Antojy’s technique moves beyond the conventional expectations of rainwater recharge where water is not just diverted but injected to create a permanent reservoir of freshwater in the deep aquifers that are not disturbed by any contaminants.

This approach considers regional parameters that influence not only the surrounding environment but also the very nature of local aquifers. Here, we found that aquifers have the potential to behave as storage tanks that can eliminate the cost of an artificially constructed tank.

The impact that both techniques have in their respective physiography are varied and hence appropriate to their local challenges. For example, as Vishwanath explained, the syringe technique itself can have a different impact (displacement instead of dilution) in other areas based on factors such as homogeneity of aquifers, its behaviour, or dimensions. 

We need to move beyond generic solutions 

Although groundwater is emerging as a critical issue has managed to encourage new government schemes like Jal Shakti Abhiyan, our study confirms that a generic solution of rainwater recharge cannot be applied across different regions. The current challenge requires localised solutions that resonate with the water demands in the area and physiographic conditions of the site. For example, in the case of Ernakulam water extraction is high from the deeper aquifer, the recharge should then be in the deeper aquifer, after understanding where the stress is.  Bangalore is another city with high extraction of water from borewells has caused depletion of the water table, and the city was predicted to be one of the first cities that would run out of water.  As Bangalore has a bimodal pattern of rainfall (rainfall received throughout the year), it has a significant potential to capture rainwater, eliminate surface run-off, and promote infiltration to restore the groundwater table in the region.

While the building by-laws of Bangalore mandates rainwater harvesting practices, most of the recharge happens in the shallow aquifers. But there is an imbalance created when people extract water from deep aquifers through borewells, but recharge the shallow aquifers through rainwater harvesting techniques leading to a disconnect between extraction and recharging practices.  

This picture illustrates the disconnect between extraction and recharging practices. While the extraction takes places from the deep aquifers, the conventional recharging practices only inject rainwater into the shallow aquifers.

Hence, while there is a pressing need for policy-level interventions to capture surface runoff and promote infiltration, practices that are implemented should simultaneously assess the impact that is made in the respective context. The adoption of the two identified grassroots level solutions and scaling up of the techniques based on the local context can be a few of the many other solutions that can address the national groundwater crisis.

It is evident that individuals can also play a crucial role in understanding the local hydrogeological condition to ensure the balance between extraction rates and recharge patterns. As more people take up such responsibility at the grassroots level, these decentralised approaches can ensure that the practices correspond to the needs of the people and the sustainability of the environment.

Authors

Abhinav Madhavanunni, Research Associate at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements

Sairama Raju Marella, Senior Associate at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements

References

1.  Centre for Water Resources Development and Management, Kerala, Impact Assessment of Mazhapolima Project on Groundwater Regime in Thrissur District, 2013

Three farm-related Bills were recently passed in the Parliament by the BJP led government at the Center, which have subsequently received presidential assent. The Mahila KIsan Adhikaar Manch (MAKAAM) opposes the unilateral and undemocratic passage of these bills and argues that though these legislations were brought in in the name of farmers, these are meant to facilitate the businesses of agri-corporations.

What are these acts and what could be their impacts?

• Farmers’ Produce and Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020
• Farmers (Empowerment & Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 aka Contract Farming Act 2020
• The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020

MAKAAM argues that these Acts will adversely and disproportionately impact a majority of women farmers and agricultural workers, who form the bulk of the small and marginal sections in the Indian agriculture and depend on the sector for their survival and livelihood.

In a context where women farmers in India already face multiple pre-existing challenges in terms of lack of recognition as farmers, unequal rights over key resources such as land, water, forests, etc., gendered access to support systems and services related to agricultural credit, inputs, subsidies, budgets and marketing their produce, these three latest legislations will subject them to a new set of vulnerabilities and livelihood threats.

Farmers’ Produce and Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020

This Act is primarily aimed at bypassing the state level APMC regime. Although not explicit, it holds the potential to do away with determining remunerative prices and guaranteeing those to the farmers by shunning a transparent price discovery mechanism with government oversight as of now. Evidence shows that only 10.5 percent agricultural households sell their food grains to any procurement agency at MSP while only 36 percent of the produce is sold in regulated markets. Then there is no new ‘freedom’ that this Act offers to the farmers given that most farmers sell most produce outside the regulated regime. Further, most state APMCs already give that statutory freedom to farmers to sell wherever they like. In fact, by weakening the APMCs by placing them on an unequal footing compared to the new “trade areas” to be regulated by the Centre, it opens up the field for big players to exploit the small and marginal farmers without any regulation or oversight.

The Act is premised on the assumption that all farmers are equally mobile and have equal access to transportation facilities to become potentially mobile to sell or purchase their agricultural produce anywhere in the country.

Impact on women farmers

Women farmers, with their poor mobility and access to transport facilities, are especially on an unequal footing when it comes to traveling to another place to trade their produce or bargain around better prices. In fact, what women farmers need is proximal markets but with oversight to protect them from exploitation by buyers/traders.

Exploitative as the private traders may have been, they still provided the support that a woman farmer needed by way of seed, credit and purchase of her small quantities of produce and paid her upfront. The new Act defines a trade area outside of the mandi which is likely to bring in new and bigger private players who may not see profit in trading with smaller farmers and would finally move towards the aggregation of produce through a new set of intermediaries who will operate in a very different ecosystem than what the women farmers were familiar with or even have access to due to the pervasive gender discrimination and restrictions on their mobility.

Although many women farmers sell to private traders, the existence of an APMC ensured that prices remained somewhere close to MSPs and therefore narrowing the margins of exploitation. The role of the APMCs to signal prices has allowed for some bargaining power to negotiate prices and is thus important even if they sell outside of the APMCs.
Instead of bringing in reforms that regulate the traders outside of the APMCs and correct the anomalies in the APMC to make it more women farmer-friendly, the Act has proposed to bypass the APMC and usher in an era of fragmented and unregulated markets.

MAKAAM believes that MSP and procurement regime can be strengthened, expanded and recast in a decentralised manner with farmgate procurement that focuses on food grains other than rice and wheat too, to have universal PDS that ensures food as well as nutrition security, thereby supporting neglected farmers, neglected grains and neglected areas, even as environmental sustainability that has gone wrong with the earlier procurement regime is addressed squarely.

The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020: Food security at stake

The PDS has been a lifeline for food access for all citizens during the pandemic, with even the government using it for distribution of relief food rations under the PMGKY.
The proposal to remove cereals, pulses, potatoes from the list of essential commodities is bound to impact food security goals. It is also an invitation to attract big corporates FDI into grain trade at a time when rest of the industry is in the doldrums and 90 metric tonnes is lying in the godowns and more to come by way of Kharif procurement.

The haste in bringing in the act is quite evident. The current PDS system supports poor families with only one cereal grain on a monthly basis and this is inadequate to meet all food and nutrition needs of a family. Further, many households are out of the PDS net given the targeted approach rather than universalised approach adopted in this food security scheme. The changes in the ECA which now more or less de-regulates fully the food supply systems in India, except for potentially ineffective regulation during ‘extra-ordinary circumstances’ would have serious implications on the food availability of the most vulnerable populations when such food is (invisibly) hoarded and becomes unaffordable.

When 38 percent of our children under the age of 5 years are stunted, 50 percent of pregnant women (15-49 years) are anaemic, the government should expand its PDS to address hunger and malnutrition. The pandemic more than ever has reiterated the need for strengthening public systems and has demonstrated how despite some weaknesses, the PDS and MNREGA have been the saviours for the poor.

Under the Essential Commodities Act, with the cap on storage and pricing being taken away (except under extraordinary situations), women as farmers, agricultural workers, consumers as well as beneficiaries of the PDS will be adversely affected in the future.

Farmers (Empowerment & Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 aka Contract Farming Act 2020

The Farmers Empowerment, Protection, Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act 2020 seeks to legalise contract farming across the country while claiming to enable farmers to get into other agreements related to seeds, other inputs and prior agreed price etc.

Read from the perspective of a majority of women farmers, who are dependent on small and marginal holdings, either as direct cultivators or tenants, these provisions are neither empowering nor provide any protection in reality! This is because poor literacy levels amongst farm women and their differential situations based on caste, class and gender places them in a disadvantaged position while understanding or negotiating (written) agreements with traders and corporate entities who are seeking to enter into agreements with the farmers to purchase their produce or for other services.

Secondly, the conciliation or dispute arbitration framework that is provided in the above Act is clearly weighed against small and marginal farmers in general and women farmers in particular. The new Act seeks to transfer powers equivalent to the civil court to the SDM and the Collector in the event of any non-compliance or dispute related to the written agreements.

Also, women farmers in general and especially those who are single will barely be in a position to afford the time and financial resources to get their problems redressed under the new framework. Despite assurance from the Central Government that Minimum Support Price for farm produce will continue, this is not written into this Act either anywhere. There is no dearth of examples of how contract farming has in fact failed the farmers on many an occasion.  Agrarian distress caused due to such an agricultural paradigm is known to increase farm suicides, the burden of which again falls on women farmers of the household.

What needs to be done

MAKAAM, therefore, makes the following demands:

• In the medium to long term, protecting farmers’ rights is not only about assuring markets and remunerative prices, but also about ensuring the necessary supports to improve yields without harming nature, promote bio-diverse models based on agro-ecological principles in agriculture that ensure diversification of crops, provide for protective irrigation for promoting bio-diverse models, and provide support for other agricultural inputs and practices. -In brief, reforms in agriculture need large scale investments in protecting farmers and not just agri-businesses. Small and marginal farmers among whom are a significant number of women form the backbone of this sector and need to be protected through robust investments towards enhancing their capacities and knowledge.

In the immediate term, MAKAAM appeals that:

• President withdraws his approval to the Acts or the Government of India itself repeals the Acts.
• Government must direct its attention to supporting the small and marginal farmers who are in distress due to the pandemic by a) providing cash transfers and loan deferments and b) supplement those with expanding the MNREGA, providing seed and market support.
• The Government should guarantee at least the MSP in all market transactions involving farmers, whatever the marketing channel might be. This should be a legal entitlement for all farmers.
• Government must bring in reforms in the APMCs that would ensure easy access to women farmers who trade at the local level. This could be on the lines of the initiatives taken by the government of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to hand over procurement to women’s SHGs at the village level and also support direct marketing initiatives.
• The government ensures (a) incentivising decentralised procurement including procurement of coarse grains; (b) geographical diversification of procurement operations; (c) augmentation of adequate decentralised modern and scientific storage; (d) giving top priority to the movement of foodgrains and providing sufficient number of rakes for this purpose, including expanding the line capacity of railways to facilitate foodgrain movement from surplus to consuming regions.
• The government rolls out a time-bound plan to ensure at least the mandated 30% representation of women farmers in the local market committees. For this MAKAAM calls for a large scale study on systemic obstacles in women farmers’ safe access to markets.
• Create an enabling environment that promotes women’s FPOs by giving them higher equity grant and working capital at low interests; encourages it in procurement at the local level. This could be done by introducing a reasonable target of all women FPOs in the recently introduced operational guidelines of FPOs (July 2020).The government should also remove FPOs from the purview of the Acts brought in.
• Bring in a separate law that guarantees remunerative prices for farmers for diverse crops and ensure all payments are made jointly to farmer households, against the current practice of only remunerating the landowner.
• Universalise and expand PDS to include millets, pulses and oil that could be procured through decentralized procurement systems by guaranteeing remunerative prices. It would address the concerns of the procurement of farm produce as well as fulfill the goal of eliminating hunger. Women farmers often produce a diverse set of crops such as moong, urad, ragi and other millets which can find guaranteed markets if the PDS, MDMS and ICDS programmes are revised to include these foods.

Please support women farmers in securing their rights by donating generously. Please click here for details.

 

National Facilitation Team, MAKAAM:

Akole Tsuhah, Anita Paul, Archana Singh, C. Bhanuja, Dr. Rukmini Rao, Dr. Soma KP, Dr. Vaishali Patil,Fatima Burnad, Heera Jangpangi, Hiral Dave, Kavitha Kuruganti, Kavitha Srinivasan, Nafisa Barot, RajimKetwas, Richa Audichiya, Roshan Rathod, S. Ashalatha, Seema Kulkarni, Seema Ravandale, Sejal Dand,Shilpa Vasavada, Shubhada Deshmukh, Usha Seethalakshmi, Varsha Ganguly.

Contact: Gargie Mangulkar, National Coordinator, MAKAAM. E-mail: mahilakisan.makaam@gmail.com

Please download the entire writeup by MAKAAM from below:

This year, Global Handwashing Day (observed annually on October 15) is particularly significant given the COVID-19 pandemic. While vaccine trials are ongoing, protective actions such as handwashing with soap is a critical first line of defence and cost-effective public health intervention. Yet this seemingly simple and hugely beneficial act of cleaning one’s hands with soap at times when germs are most likely to enter bodies is quite complex and challenging to practice consistently.

To reach out to the last mile, as soon as possible, to promote awareness and adoption of critical and preventive hygiene practices, WaterAid India (WAI) designed and implemented a communications campaign on essential hygiene messages – simple and effective messages -- for rural and urban communities.

WAI launched an eight-day intensive campaign in seven languages -- Hindi, Marathi, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, Odia and English -- using digital posters, audio messages and video messages on ‘good hygiene practices. We directly reached over 10 lakh individuals across 12 States.

As the lockdown as being lifted, WAI conducted a rapid study in end May-early June to understand whether communication on hand hygiene during lockdown (March – April) was received, understood, and translated into action. The study was conducted across six states in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Karnataka.

The majority of respondents to this study were adults from households with children under six years; elderly above 60 years of age; and households identified as vulnerable or marginalised according to the existing socio-economic criteria.

The findings have implications for interventions and policy actions for incorporating hygiene promotion into large-scale health, nutrition, and water, sanitation, hygiene (WASH) programs.

Key finds from the rapid survey are:

• Respondents changed their handwashing practices in response to the pandemic, primarily out of fear of coronavirus and to protect themselves from the disease.
• Soap was used by the vast majority to wash hands, with 80% washing hands for at least 20 seconds.
• The perceived benefits of handwashing with soap was slightly higher for coronavirus than for other diseases, though the knowledge was moderate in both contexts. The knowledge that soap is an effective cleansing agent is high.

Exposure to messages on coronavirus and handwashing was frequent; with a preference for simple, clear messages that are visual and engaging. The stark difference between the proportion reporting exposure to messages on mask use and its connection with messages on respiratory hygiene (20%) and COVID-19 symptoms (47%) suggest the link between the two may have been poorly understood by households.

Television was the most popular form of mass media communication on coronavirus (61%) and handwashing (58%), followed by mobile phone (43% for coronavirus, 45% on handwashing).

• Families received messages about coronavirus and protective measures such as mask use (76%), physical distancing (70%) and handwashing with soap (67%) during the lockdown phase of the pandemic (April-May 2020). However, only 20% recalled communication on respiratory hygiene and 47% to information on COVID-19 symptoms - suggesting that information on the link between protective measures and the transmission of coronavirus may have been inadequately communicated or poorly understood by the households.

Informal community networks and frontline workers, as well as television and mobile phones, were the main sources of information on coronavirus and handwashing. The capacity of community-based stakeholders to promote hygiene and support hygiene practices must be strengthened. Mass messaging through TV and mobile phones must be enhanced to reinforce hand hygiene habits.

• Knowledge of critical times for handwashing was high for before meals (98%) and after toilet use (87%), but low for handwashing related to child care tasks and for all COVID-19 related critical times.
• 57% of households used water directly from a handpump or stored water without a tap for handwashing – which could pose difficulties to regular handwashing by family members.
• For 18% of households, the handwashing space was outside the home – challenging frequent handwashing by household members.

While knowledge of soap use is high, clear understanding of how diseases, including COVID-19 spread, and how handwashing with soap breaks disease transmission routes appear limited. Further, the perception that handwashing protects the self, but not necessarily others in one’s family (persons in close contact) indicates an inadequate understanding of disease transmission and protective measures.

The rationale behind the survey

Studies on handwashing with soap concerning COVID-19 show that people are more aware of hand hygiene. But we cannot stop here.

We now need to turn our attention to engendering this important behaviour in the long term – supporting individuals and families with conveniently located handwashing facilities equipped with soap and water, deepening understanding of how handwashing works to protect families and communities, and building the capacity of community networks to promote and support hygiene behaviours. Our investments must continue for awareness generation, and be expended to address appropriate hygiene infrastructure and sustained behaviours.

WaterAid India is committed to hand hygiene for COVID-19 and beyond. We are launching communication campaigns for schools and anganwadis to facilitate protective hygiene practices among children, their parents, teachers and anganwadi workers. 

The full study is attached below -

India is fortunate to have a rich tradition of public data collection and compilation. Government functionaries at the national, state, district, block and panchayat levels collect data on thousands of variables on population, land use, agricultural production, irrigation, stream flows, reservoir storage, groundwater level, employment and livestock; and almost all of it is meticulously aggregated and compiled at district and state level.

These routine or regular data collection exercises are complemented by quinquennial (every five years) Agriculture, Livestock and Minor Irrigation censuses and the decadal population census. Large-scale sample surveys routinely undertaken by the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) add richness to the census data. Compared to other developing countries, India’s public data collection and availability is much better; some of the detailed datasets – such as the census of more than 20 million minor irrigation structures – is not even available in much ‘richer’ water economies such as the United States.

As can be expected from any large-scale data collection process, the quality of our public data is highly variable, sometimes even inconsistent. But, overall, if analyses and interpretation are done keeping in mind some of the limitations, the datasets can be a precious resource at the meso and macro level. For all the effort and resources that go into the collection of this data, and the rich overview of the water and agriculture economy that the data can paint, India’s public datasets are largely underutilized.

Factors that contribute to underutilization of public datasets

Data quality

Most national-level censuses fall under the responsibilities of the concerned ministry of the Government of India. However, the actual execution and data collection cannot be done without support from state and local government departments. For the Minor Irrigation Census, for example, the Minor Irrigation (Statistics) Wing in the Ministry of Jal Shakti (formerly, Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation) is the nodal agency at Centre. All costs associated with conducting the census is borne by the central government. However, execution is the responsibility of respective state water resource ministries/nodal departments.

The central ministry prepares the pro-forma schedule and conducts workshops in states to train enumerators. While some states take this exercise seriously, others may not. While in some states, the irrigation department collects the data themselves, in others, it has been farmed out to private data collection agencies.

In the past, due to several reasons, some states have even failed to send back any data – for example, Rajasthan is missing from the first MI census. Gujarat, Maharashtra and three union territories (Chandigarh, Daman & Diu and Lakshadweep) were missing from the second census. Daman & Diu and Lakshadweep are also missing from the subsequent third, fourth and fifth censuses. All of these create variability and inconsistencies in data and make it difficult to compare and analyse.

Data lags

Given that so far, most of the data collection has been done through paper-based enumeration schedules, there is usually a big lag between data collection and its final release. The report of the Fourth MI census – which had the reference year of 2005-06 was released in 2014; the lag was reduced in the fifth census where the reference year was 2013-14 and the report was published in 2017. In recent iterations, this issue is expected to be tackled through digitization of data collection and compilation and use of tablet-based surveys and appropriate tools for data management.

Data formats

Another huge challenge with data is that it is collected and compiled based on administrative boundaries (districts, blocks)– which themselves keep changing. Any comparison of data across different censuses has to deal with this issue. While changes in administrative boundaries are perhaps inevitable, the analyses can be made easy if disaggregated data was made accessible (so that it can easily be re-aggregated as per new administrative divisions).

Most of the data is released as poorly-scanned data tables in pdf format, and often needs to be painfully downloaded state-wise, or sometimes even by crop or district. Often, undertaking any analyses requires a costly and wasteful process of ‘re-digitalization’[1] which can be easily avoided.

Our hunch is that if the data was better organized and available for download in more ‘user-friendly’ formats, its utilization would improve manifold and it would start informing important policies and programs – both government-led as well as donor or civil-society driven.

Despite these limitations, India’s public ‘water and agriculture’ datasets can help nudge India’s public policy debates towards data-driven planning – at the macro level. These datasets, however, are unlikely to be very useful for the village or even small watershed-level planning.

For best results, data from large public datasets and micro-level field studies should be made interoperable so that the two can be combined to present a nuanced picture of the agrarian economy.

We conclude by highlighting some positive steps in the public data space that are encouraging and a ‘wish-list’ of what else needs to be done to nudge us in the right direction.

Some bright spots

• The National Rainfed Area Authority (NRAA) recently published a report that has creatively combined several datasets on rainfall, land use, agriculture, livestock, groundwater, soil moisture, demography, WASH etc. into two district-level indices: Natural Resource Index and Livelihood Index. Both of these are then combined into a Composite Index for arriving at a data-driven prioritization of districts (NRAA 2020).

• The sixth minor irrigation census added a census of water bodies – both rural and urban – which would also capture their pictures and GPS location.

• Adoption of digital data collection tools is slowly becoming the standard practice, and this is likely to improve data quality, reliability, and timeliness. The twentieth livestock census deployed a combination of web-based and mobile-based schedules for collection and compilation of data.

• The India Observatory has launched the Groundwater Monitoring Tool – an open-source Android tool that enables collection and compilation of well water level data. The tool facilitates a network of field organizations to contribute data from villages in their respective field areas.

• Some of IWMI-Tata Program’s research has demonstrated how creatively combining some of these datasets can be used to inform big-ticket policy initiatives such as the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana (PMKSY) (Shah et al. 2016).

Availability of high-resolution remote sensing data is increasing by the day. Recently, Norway invested ~€37 million to make < 5m resolution satellite imagery for 64 countries open access to assist research and policymaking on deforestation. This includes imagery from Planet, KSAT, Airbus and historical SPOT imagery from 2002 onwards.

• CGWB is planning to release data collected through the national aquifer mapping program (NAQUIM) in formats that are useful for the village as well as macro-level planning.

What more is needed

• Inter-ministerial coordination and convergence for coherence: Given that collection and compilation fall in the purview of sectoral ministries; India’s public data tends to be highly isolated and sectoral. Even agriculture and irrigation datasets – which are so closely linked – don’t always sync well. Better coordination between Jal Shakti and Agriculture ministries in designing survey instruments and scheduling rounds of data collection can bring immense returns.
• Since farmers in most states are provided free or highly subsidized power for pumping, data on power consumption in agriculture is at best a rough estimate which is a leading worry for electricity regulators as it can undermine accountability in utility performance. IWMI-Tata Program has used data from the Minor Irrigation Census to estimate energy consumption in agriculture (see Rajan and Verma 2017). Likewise, given the salience of energy-irrigation nexus in India, bringing data from the two sectors together can yield useful insights.
• User-friendly navigation and aggregation/ disaggregation layers: A common portal to bring all the large datasets together can be very useful, especially for planning programs and designing interventions. The Open Government Data platform [https://data.gov.in/] is an early step in this direction but it needs to do more than just be a repository of stand-alone and dispersed datasets.

Links to some useful large-scale data sets available online

Acknowledgement: Some ideas discussed in the article stem from a webinar on “Data-driven ‘water and agriculture’ planning” with Tata Trusts’ and partners. The authors would like to acknowledge support from the CGIAR research program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE) and IWMI-Tata Water Policy Program (ITP).

Shilp Verma and Cheshta Rajora work with IWMI-Tata Policy Program. Manisha Shah is associated with Arghyam. Views expressed are personal.

A few of us did an exercise where we closed our eyes and thought of the first four words that came to our minds when we thought of water data in India. Here is what we came up with:

• Where (is it)? - Pointing to a large vacuum in data availability.
• Management Information Systems (MIS) - created during a program’s life as a method for the funding and oversight agencies to know what is happening on the ground.
• Unusable - Most of the data in the public domain is not available real-time, making it irrelevant to the decision making today.
• God knows! - who collects this data, what training did they receive to collect it, how is it updated into the system -  all pointing to whether it paints the right picture.

All these words, we realised, point to one fundamental problem - a lack of trust. We also realised all is not lost. Programs - both governmental and non-governmental are making rapid strides in terms of tools used to collect data and dashboarding this data. Simple, open tools are being developed to urge better data collection and visibility to actors within a program.

Most of these tools, in turn, feed an MIS, which is set up to track and monitor the programs. In fact, programs spend a substantial amount of human and capital resources on their MIS. However, when the program ends, this MIS expires as well. When the next program comes in, it starts with its baseline - and once again leaves no data behind.

Can we break this cycle?

Yes, we can. Let us understand how by using two current programs of the Government of India:  the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) and Atal Bhujal Yojana (ABhY). Together, these programs will reach more than 6 lakh villages, collecting data from each of them to generate plans. The Water Security Plan (WSP) mandated by ABhY has more than 225 attributes to be collected which will involve intensive community engagement. Similarly, the Village Action Plan (VAP) under JJM has more than 130 attributes, some of which overlap with data collected for the WSP, especially the component under source sustainability.

If implemented well, this data will be inherently owned and trusted by the community as both program designs have rightly put them at the centre of these schemes. In villages where both the programs will be implemented, making data from one available to the other is a no-brainer to ensure convergence and optimum outcomes.

This seamless flow of data from one program to another can be enabled if a few principles are kept in mind:

Community as data owners and users

Keeping the subsidiarity principle in mind, data should be made available to the community in a way that builds their agency and empowers them to make the right decisions. Involving the community in a data framework with the right incentives will have the second-order benefit of the community being active collectors of data, allowing for annual VAPs/WSPs to be created leading to a virtuous cycle that lasts beyond the programs. This is also in line with the first Disbursement Linked Indicator (DLI) in ABhY that calls for making data publicly available.

Trust in data

Data abundance will lead to usage and improved decision making only if there is trust in data. This is possible through Digitally Verifiable Registries (of people, entities, tools and assets that participate in the network) with open application programming interfaces (APIs) that can amplify trust and accountability across the network.

This will ensure that personnel collecting data will be tagged to these data sets (in ways that keep their privacy in mind) and the capacity building done as a part of JJM and ABhY will, in turn, be tagged to them thus reinforcing trust in data.

Data as an exhaust

Simply put, this means that data is available in run-time as a part of workflows within the program, without creating new workflows solely for the purpose of data collection and uploading. ABhY lays a strong foundation for this by ensuring the right infrastructure is made available at the GP-level.

Use of open standards

It is necessary to create open standards and certification mechanisms to ensure neutrality and interoperability among devices, sensors, and systems.

For instance, every vendor that sells a water quality test to ABhY or JJM understands the minimum specifications for the device to qualify as viable and usable by the program. So, multiple vendors can build devices for the program, given the huge demand, which in turn can drive down costs.

Incentive aligned collaborative design

There is a need to create an environment for data sharing to empower all the actors and amplify the collective ability of the ecosystem to leverage what exists. It can also enable actors to act, solve the problems, and contribute back as required for creating a data-rich economy. We need to invest and think deeply on designing these incentives and collaborate more to make them a reality.

Given the potential that these programs have to enrich data availability in the water sector, there is a huge potential to reimagine the MIS of these programs to provide program-agnostic data and artefacts to the ecosystem at a granular level in a trusted manner to empower ecosystem actors.

By doing this, the Government of India can seed a reimagined way of managing data - which ensures that communities collect, manage and use their data making the primary objective of these programs i.e. to be participatory, a reality.

Samanvay Foundation has developed a knowledgebase for leaders working in nonprofit organisations, on issues related to software technology and its use in community programs. It covers strategy, management, economics, and appropriateness of software technology. This article comes from our experience of working in many such community programs for dozens of organisations over years. In this article, some of the fundamental concepts are explained in a generic form. It is also an attempt to develop a common vocabulary that hopefully makes us more efficient in communicating with each other.

About community program organisation and its beneficiaries

Unit of intervention

This is the most fundamental unit towards which the activities of the social program are directed.

• Client
• Household
• Group (self-help group, village committee)
• Facility (hospital, school, water source, farming polyhouse etc)
• Location (village, block, cluster, etc)

When the unit of intervention is facility or location, the activities are aimed at improving them in a manner that its members ultimately benefit from it somehow.

Organisation levels in a community service intervention (or program)

1. Service or intervention target - Client, household, community, group
2. Community/field workers
3. Technical specialist
4. Field-based coordinators/facilitators/supervisors
5. Program coordinators/managers
6. Funding organization(s)

Please note that 2-4 may not be the same as the legal organisation but that is not of much interest to us - in order to understand the logical structure of the community program organisations.

Let’s take two examples - one from health and another from an education program and apply the above. The concepts explained above have been highlighted in bold in the diagrams.

In our attempt to develop this knowledge base, we have generalised concepts for all sectors and all types of community programs. While this is consistent with 75-odd programs we have come across, we would welcome feedback if your program differs from the ones we have described here.

We would also like to state that we have excluded programs which perform periodic activities like health camps, disease screening, one time surveys, etc. Having said that, most of the concepts discussed here and later, we believe, may still be of interest to you.

Schema of data managed in community programs

Input/source data

Input data is the data which organisation members add to the system.

Longitudinal data

When one or more service providers, collect information about a unit of intervention, over a time period - the entire dataset about the unit of intervention is also called longitudinal data. This type of data is of most interest to us. There are two types of longitudinal data we may have.

• Observational data - This could be for establishing the intervention units’ status at a point in time, e.g. baseline, midline, end-line data.
• Service data - Data on service provisioning like individual’s health record or farmer’s agricultural activities/intervention record. The diagram below illustrates two such data examples.

Cross-sectional data

It could be also referred to as survey data. It is the data collected about multiple entities (like intervention units) at the same point in time. Since they are collected at the same point in time, they are not multi-level and rich like longitudinal data. In the diagram above, for the water body, if the desilting program and water quality program are absent and the organisation is performing only annual surveys on water bodies, in the month of April, in a district - then that would be considered cross-sectional data.

Event data

These are like longitudinal data generated over time but without belonging-to or applicable-to an intervention unit. This could be the activity data logged by the community service provider like transportation record, supply received, expense reports, so on.

Sometimes event data can be about the intervention unit but there is no established trusted identity of the intervention unit. This is usually either because establishing the identity is difficult, cost-prohibitive, or not useful. e.g. this could be the list of people who fall sick with dengue in a given season, in a water and sanitation program which is more interested in the maintenance of water bodies (in epidemiology it is called line lists).

Finally, in case you are wondering, we have not covered the structure of supporting data like master data and metadata (e.g. question-answer data, answer options, etc). These are generally well understood since they have very broad application and not just community programs.

Input data in an organisational context

When the above data is overlapped with service providing organization then we can see the following classification of data.

1. Beneficiary retained record (e.g. health card). This is a record which is maintained by the intervention units themselves and could be longitudinal in nature.
2. Intervention unit service record, maintained by community worker for each intervention unit (e.g. individual-level health record, student’s record, household’s livelihood data, water source monitoring record).
3. Service monitoring record could be same as intervention unit service record or could have fewer data elements based on relevance to the field coordination. This is for the purpose of project monitoring and execution planning.
4. Service management record could be maintained by any/all levels of the servicing organization. These records are not specific to any beneficiary, although they could be linked to multiple beneficiaries sometimes. e.g. transportation details of a community worker, allocation of certain assets to multiple intervention units, training sessions attended, etc. This is of type event data.

Output data

Output data can be completely generated from the input data. It is of three types.

1. Service indicators consisting of derived indicators from the underlying data (1-3 above). They are derived and maintained against aggregation dimensions e.g. the number of children vaccinated (indicator) in a month (time-period) in a village (location) from the CSR XYZ fund (funding source).
2. Outcome/output targets created for assessing the intervention/project. These are for measuring achievement and not for service delivery. e.g. target for number villages reached, self-help groups formed, total-patients-cured.
3. Insight data is gets created by running a domain-specific computation on the input data to derive some actionable insights. e.g. getting a list (or count) of children who are not gaining weight with age.

Measurement dimensions of output data

Social intervention programs capture the data to provide services and carry out their activities. Along with this, the input data is also important in understanding how their intervention is performing. This is usually done by tracking a set of indicators over certain dimensions. The indicators can be like, number of SHG’s formed, number of handpumps installed, so on. These are usually done along the following dimensions.

1. Location hierarchy - e.g. village, block, district, etc.
2. Period - e.g. week, month, quarter, season, so on.
3. Organisational entities - funding organisation, NGO partner, projects
4. Intervention unit's attribute classification - these dimensions are derived from the values of attributes of the intervention unit. e.g. age group, gender, caste, religion, water source type, school-level (primary, secondary etc).

These are also usually additively rolled up the hierarchy, period, and entity - but not necessarily. The number of handpumps installed in the block is a sum of handpumps installed in villages under it. Similarly, over period and entity. This, rolling up along the dimensions, is an important attribute of the output service indicators data.

Icon courtesy: icons8

This article has been republished with permission from Samanvay Foundation. View the original here.

Radharamanpada is an unauthorised slum in Angul with 300 houses. The president of the slum sanitation committee Janaki Sahu, a 28-year-old mother of four, runs a street food stall on the main road. There are seven women in the committee of eleven, working on sanitation solution for populations that remain underserved. Janaki is vocal about the committee’s early successes in this high-density settlement.

Talking about sanitation, Janaki says she goes house to house to speak about making and using toilets from the point of view of health, safety and convenience during the monsoons. Because of this, and out of necessity, since a bus stand has come up in their erstwhile open defecation space, people have made toilets. Half of the households have unsanitary latrines while the others have made sanitary latrines with subsidies from Swacch Bharat Mission. Janaki’s experience is that creating demand for sanitation infrastructure for poor families and facilitating their use and continued maintenance is a huge task.

Sanitation advocacy and communication 

Given that usage and adequate maintenance of sanitation infrastructure is a learned and imbibed behaviour – a practice developed over time – it is crucial to aid this process through appropriate communication inputs that help generate awareness about the impact of poor containment, collection, transportation and treatment systems on the environment among all stakeholders.

Project Nirmal, which worked on the demonstration of appropriate, low-cost, decentralized, inclusive and sustainable sanitation service delivery solutions for two small towns (Angul and Dhenkanal) worked on developing appropriate communication inputs. The communication inputs were aimed at ensuring that the project achieves its overall objective of “demonstrating the feasibility of town-wide low-cost decentralized sanitation systems for small and medium towns, strongly incorporating faecal sludge management (FSM) techniques for on-site sanitation (OSS) systems”.

Specifically, the project aimed at spreading awareness on the need for FSM and its linkages with health, economic well-being and the environment. Further, the project was committed to building an understanding and knowledge about the various processes (technical, institutional and financial) to be implemented in order to ensure safe, scientific and sustainable management of faecal waste (including safe containment, collection, transportation, treatment, disposal and reuse).

The target audiences for the communication inputs were all stakeholders along the FSM value chain including households, institutions (schools and health institutions), private service providers (including desludging operators, masons, etc.), and urban local bodies (ULBs).

Assessment of existing knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAPs) along the FSM value chain

Research and stakeholder interactions brought to light that the existing knowledge attitudes and practices related to the management of faecal waste were very poor in both towns (Angul and Dhenkanal).

Lacunae with respect to awareness, knowledge and practices along the FSM value chain were observed for all stakeholders. The assessment also revealed that slum communities were not aware of the proper design of toilets/OSS systems as well as sources of funding available for construction of toilets (schemes and programs of Government of India and Government of Odisha).

Further, the assessment also brought to light the fact that poor awareness on sanitation and FSM was not just limited to slum communities but was also a huge challenge in non-slum communities. In fact, non-slum communities found it even harder to establish a connection between improper FSM and their health and environmental pollution.

Given the rigid personal boundaries in non-slum communities and the fact that households have very limited time and avenues for community bonding and collective action, it was extremely challenging to design appropriate communication channels for them communities.

The details of negative behaviours and practices of stakeholders along the FSM value chain in Angul and Dhenkanal were identified under Project Nirmal. The aspect to be addressed by communication inputs were –

• Awareness about proper design and construction of toilets and OSS systems (septic tanks and pits)
• Awareness of safe disposal mechanism
• Awareness about the need for timely desludging/emptying of OSS systems (including septic tanks and pits)
• Advocacy measures to address the supply side concerns of limited desludging/emptying services being provided by the Municipality
• Create adequate linkages between the community and private service providers
• Awareness on proper/safe method of collection and transportation of faecal sludge and ensuring adoption of safe hygiene practices among service providers (Municipal and private)
• Generating awareness and knowledge on safe and scientific methods for the treatment of faecal waste
• Addressing the negative behaviour of disposing the untreated sludge into the water bodies/open space/drains
• Creating awareness on the end-use of treated faecal waste

Communication strategy: Project Nirmal

A communication strategy was developed under Project Nirmal to (a) address the negative behaviours and practices being followed by different stakeholders along the sanitation value chain and (b) address supply-side constraints in order to ensure adequate provision of sanitation-related services (including collection, transportation, treatment, reuse and disposal related services).

The overarching theme was ensuring implementation of safe and scientific sanitation practices along the entire sanitation value chain with FSM as an integral component.

Inter-Personal Communication (IPC) was identified as the primary communication tool for enhancing awareness levels and building knowledge/capacities of all stakeholders on issues related to sanitation in general and FSM in particular.

Change in behaviour needs to be preceded by various stakeholder groups thinking and acting differently than before. Sanitation and FSM do not have a single, monolithic audience; instead, it has many audiences each perceiving a different set of benefits/risks arising from behaviour change and each responding differently to various types of communication inputs.

The stakeholder mapping exercise undertaken as a part of the formative research identified students, women and sanitation service providers as active stakeholders. The communication inputs for this group were aimed at building upon their existing motivation and enabling them to act as change agents and disseminators of information in their respective communities as well as to undertake advocacy and networking.

Adult males, masons, plumbers and sanitary material suppliers were identified as passive stakeholders who required intensive and targeted communication inputs in order to develop their understanding of sanitation and FSM related processes. The third category of stakeholders was those that although had a significant stake/voice but had till now not been targeted by communication inputs and could potentially play the role of either audiences or change-makers, these included sanitation workers, ward councillors and ULB officials.

Lessons learnt

• Since knowledge, attitudes, practices and behaviours related to sanitation and specifically those pertaining to creating a demand for sanitation services, their usage and proper maintenance are strongly influenced by personal beliefs and emotions it becomes imperative to understand these beliefs and emotions for all stakeholders along the sanitation value chain. Through appropriately designed communication inputs sanitation-related initiatives can address the negative behaviour patterns and reinforce positive ones.

The development of communication inputs needs a scientific approach in order to ensure that current behaviours and practices which are impediments for realizing the optimal benefits of improved sanitation access are appropriately addressed. Under Project Nirmal, the communication strategy and inputs were developed based on the findings of a rigorous assessment which included formative research and consultations with all stakeholders. This process ensured that the local context and nuances were well understood and communication inputs were designed accordingly.

• The strategy of leveraging community engagement structures created under Project Nirmal, namely, slum sanitation committees (SSCs) and ward sanitation committees (WSCs), has stood in good stead as the motivation and enthusiasm of the leaders and members of these community structures has been effectively channelized for awareness generation and information dissemination at the community and ward level as well as for undertaking advocacy and networking to ensure the provision of adequate sanitation related services.

The project recognizes women, children and sanitation service providers as active stakeholders. Women and youth have been trained and their capacities strengthened on issues related to the design of toilets and OSS systems. However, care needs to be taken to ensure that the project doesn’t overburden these population groups with responsibilities related to communication, networking and advocacy.

• Community members, especially those who are a part of the SSCs have been trying to spread awareness among uninitiated members on better sanitation behaviour. At times, there is a breakdown of IPC as people want change but feel that they cannot convince others. This needs to be addressed through appropriate training inputs on how to steer conversations and processes that help boost the motivation of community leaders/volunteers despite the negative response from communities.
• The issues related to poor sanitation related awareness are not just limited to slum communities and there are also significant challenges in non-slum communities. Two key challenges encountered in non-slum communities are (a) inability of households to relate to the linkages between poor management of faecal sludge and their health as well as the microenvironment of their colonies and (b) lack of spaces, platforms and opportunities for engaging effectively with these communities. This is something which needs to be addressed in order to ensure city-wide implementation of sanitation-related awareness generation and communication.

The research learning note 'Project Nirmal: Creating Demand, Ensuring Usage and Adequate Maintenance Of Urban Sanitation Infrastructure Through Communication Inputs’ deals with these aspects in details.

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 article 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