Water Budgeting at
Village Level for Achieving Drinking Water Security
“What cannot be measured cannot be
managed”. This has become the theme slogan for the National Drinking Water
Security Pilot Projects launched by Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation.
It was felt in various deliberations on drinking water supply and management
scenario in rural areas of the country that despite impressive coverage
achieved under National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP), a sense of
insecurity grips the population in
times of water crisis specially in the areas where groundwater has been over
exploited. This not being
just a psychological perception but arising out of physical non availability of
water to a village or a certain section of a village for a certain period of
time , made the Ministry think on the lines of Drinking Water Security Plan at
the village or habitation level.
During the International workshop on
Achieving Drinking Water Security in Water stressed and Quality-affected Areas
on 25-26 May 2010 the deliberations focused on the need for measurement of the various parameters
of ground water for its effective management.
Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation
launched the Pilot Projects to have a better understanding of the issues
involved, and try and develop a scalable model with adequate documentation in
order to make the models replicable in comparable areas, and the technical
support is being provided by WSP SA (Water and Sanitation Program South Asia)
The
entry point activity in the pilot project is Water Budget training where the
community learns how to measure their water resources and prepare a water
budget. The training venue is normally a Panchayat building or a community
hall, and sometimes during winters the meeting takes place in the chaupal of
the village. The participants and the trainers both sitting on the same Darree
or Jajam (a local carpet), with pedestal mounted blackboard, and a flip chart
board. The three day water budget training exercise starts with an exercise to
judge the level of understanding of the villagers about the water resources. The participants then involve in a
brainstorming session on the current status of the drinking water sources and
supplies in their village. The community perception of the drinking water
status is brought out in the group discussion. This is followed by lunch, which
consists of typical local delicacies, prepared in the village itself. Post
lunch the role of various stakeholders is discussed, with group discussions on
the methods for assessment of the drinking water situation in the village,
issues related to distribution, losses, leakages, and customer satisfaction.
The day ends with a session on planning the next day activities.
The second day of the training starts
with recap of the learnings of Day 1, and then the participants set out for the
field work with a transect walk through the village to get a holistic picture
of the water sources for various uses. The team is equipped with the Survey of
India Topo Sheet, Cadastral map of the village, Compass, GPS, water level
recorder, Field kits for water quality test, sample bottles, stop watches, and
buckets for measurements and recording of data. Participants visit various
agricultural wells, canals, tanks and drinking water wells, measure water
level, quality, and discharge to get an understanding of the total water system
and its impact if any on the village water supply. This field exercise is to
expose the participants to the techniques of measurements with local simple
tools like stop watches as well as high end tools like GPS, and compass.
After taking a few sample readings across
the village and the fields, the participants return to the training venue for
the lunch. Post lunch the group sits together to identify the list of
parameters to be considered in water budgeting exercise. The participants
discuss the use of water
budgeting, the parameters to be considered for estimation and the ways and
means of collecting the data. The group finalizes a simple water budget
calculation principle. Mock water budgeting exercise follows with the
participants divided in to 6 groups of 4 to 5 members each.
These groups visit different localities
within their village with specific objectives to gather information and data as
follows:
Group 1 : Details of surface water sources
such as lakes, ponds, canals, their approximate measurements
Group 2: Agronomy, agricultural
practices, crop area
Group 3: Details of Livestock
Group 4: Details of Groundwater sources such as
Tube wells, open wells
Group 5: Water required for domestic and
drinking water needs
Group 6: Leakages in the village water supply
scheme, and water wastages in the village
Based on these data the
community then calculates the water balance for the village, from the details
that emerged from the deliberations after the assignment of group tasks to
volunteers. Trainer group encouraged the volunteers to assess the availability
and consumption within their village. All the calculations are based on the
data provided by the group. Since the typically difficult
measurement units of meter cube and kilo liters to measure huge quantity of
water are difficult to be
understood by the community, simple unit of their village water tank which is
50,000 litres is used for the calculations and all calculations are done in
terms of the number of tanks where 1 tank = 50,000 litres. Different groups in
different village also evolve their own measurement units that are easy to
explain or be understood by the community.
A water balance is shown as a
picture also by the community so that a comparison
may be drawn for the consumption and availability.
The group than engages into
deliberations onto how to set the balance right. This triggers a long process
of discussions, which continues in the following days, and results into some
decision by the community themselves which come out as Drinking water Security
Plan for the village. This plan lists the issues for the Drinking water Security,
and enumerates the activities required to achieve Drinking water security for
the village. The activities may range from self regulation on water wastages to
modify agricultural practices for better water use efficiency or changing the
crop pattern, or to change the pipe lines, or installation of valves or
modifications in the distribution systems.
The Pilot projects are aimed
at achieving drinking water security in a holistic manner, through a
four-pronged approach of -
Measures for source sustainability through convergence with MNREGS, IWMP and
other Watershed programmes and NRDWP; Participatory integrated water resources
management led by Gram Panchayats; Preparation of drinking water security plans
by villages; and Making the selected villages open defecation free and ensuring
proper solid and liquid waste management.
A Steering Committee at the
Ministry level headed by the Secretary, MDWS, GOI oversees and monitors the
progress of the National Drinking Water Security Pilot Projects.
The planning and implementation , at the District level, and for the
convergence issues, a District Core Group headed by the District Collector is
in place in all the Districts that have the Pilot blocks, consisting of
officers from the departments which deal with water management in the district
and also the departments which affect the water scenario in the District in
order to provide a holistic view , and data and technology transfer supports
for the development of water security plans for the Pilot Block.
The Rural Water Supply department is the nodal agency for execution of the project. Since the work involves lot of efforts on the front of community mobilization, support organizations have been recruited which are responsible for awareness generation, baseline data collection, trainings of Village Water and Sanitation Committees, and assisting the community in preparing village water security plans. Financing for the pilot comes from the existing allocations under the NRDWP Sustainability and Support components, MNREGS funds and allocations under the 13thFinance Commission recommendations.
15 blocks with alarming level of ground
water development have been identified in the States of Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh,
Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Tamilnadu, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh
and Maharashtra, for demonstration with a provision for scaling up to the
district level and thereafter on to a larger scale if the pilots are
successful.
Thus, a revolution has been initiated
silently in the rural drinking water sector of the country, through shaping up
of village level drinking water security plans, by empowering the communities
with the technical know how that sharpens their traditional wisdom and
understanding of their water resources, and by reinstalling the faith in the
community about their capabilities to manage their own drinking water.
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