Sunita Narain: Water riddles

DOWN TO EARTH

I travelled in Kerala last fortnight seeking answers to some riddles. I wanted to know what the government was doing to meet the drinking water needs of people in this wet-drought state. Searching in villages and academic papers, an anomalous statistic caught my interest.

According to 1999 estimations of the National Sample Survey Organisation and the 2001 Census, only 11 to 14 per cent of rural Kerala had access to potable water supply. But the same data showed that some 77 to 85 per cent of people said they had drinking water supply.

This discrepancy, I then understood, stems from official definition. In government parlance, "coverage of drinking water supply" takes into account government- (or publicly-) created assets "" pipes, tubewells or handpumps. But people in Kerala depend upon private dugwells that technically cannot be counted as part of the structure.

The missing link was confirmed when I asked people. They invariably showed me a dugwell inside the homestead. The problem, they explained, was that their well dried up in the two or three peak summer months. As this realisation dawned, I started seeing wells everywhere.

I soon learnt there were an estimated 4.5 million dugwells in the state "" 300 per sq km. I also learnt that these wells tapped the shallow aquifers, a perfect solution since natural recharge is by and large poor in this largely lateritic region.

The yield was sufficient to meet household needs in normal times. Clearly these dugwells "" between five and 50 metres deep "" were then the perfect decentralised source for Keralites. So I wondered: shouldn't these be integral to drinking water supply programmes?

No. Kerala follows the national norm: rural drinking water supply programmes built around piped water or handpumps. As early as the 1970s, the Central government introduced the accelerated rural water supply programme to give states grants for water supply.

By 2002-03, Rs 40,000 crore was spent and over 91.6 per cent of villages fully covered "" that is, they had a source of water 1.6 km from the settlement. But even the government officially accepts that this estimation is not worth even the paper it is written on. Villages are "covered", but water is not available.

Even as the government reaches 1,00,000 settlements each year through pipes and handpumps, it finds another 1,00,000 "" source dried-up, quality fallen or pipe broken "" back in the list.

In early 2000, the government allocated 20 per cent of the rural water supply funds to quality improvement and keeping the source sustainable, and 15 per cent for operation and maintenance (O&M). But is this reform adequate, given the enormity of the problem?

The Centre for Development Studies had some years ago estimated that the entire annual expenditure on the drinking water programme "" some Rs 2,000 crore "" was needed just to meet the replacement costs of equipment and for O&M.

All this notwithstanding, in late 2002, then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajapayee launched with great fanfare the Swajaldhara scheme: now, the "community would own, operate and maintain" the water system.

Under this scheme, communities were asked to contribute 10 per cent to the total capital costs; once completed, panchayats would take over O&M. They would charge for water delivery and recover their costs. The state, by downloading its public function, believed that it would now solve the "sustainability and quality" problem plaguing the programme.

In Kerala, the only difference is that the community brings in 15 per cent, the panchayat 10 per cent and the government the remaining 75 per cent of the total project cost. From what I saw, it was clear this approach would improve the quality of service delivery.

But what about sustainability? The source of the water "" pumped to a tank and then to homes "" is invariably a well some distance away. The problem is that in densely-populated Kerala, these wells for private (or call it community) water supply are a potential source of conflict, with other well-owners in adjoining lands worried about water level decline.

Also, if not adequately recharged, the source could dry up, becoming a wasted asset. The cost makes it impossible to replicate across the state.

In this context, let's return to the dugwell. It is a decentralised source. It is cost-effective. But still the government does not begin to plan for it. I would argue that the drinking water programme in Kerala should have been centred around this wealth of 4.5 million dugwells, resolving the problems of quality and quantity.

By actively promoting a programme for individual well-recharge "" harvesting Kerala's massive rainwater endowment to build up aquifers "" peak summer shortage could be tempered as well. All in all, it would be a cheaper, much more accessible and sustainable source of drinking water.

But water planners in Kerala, as in the rest of the country, always fail to see what is under their nose. How many such systems have been destroyed wilfully by bureaucracies that failed to see what people were doing to secure their water future? Will Kerala's dugwells hold out? Will they provide answers for the new government's to-be-relaunched drinking water mission?