*President, India Water Foundation, New Delhi. [This is the revised version of the discussion author had as a Panelist at the IUKAN Conference 2014 held in New Delhi on 13 February 2014.]
Current models of urban planning and water management are exceedingly proving insufficient from the perspective of cost effectiveness, technical performance, social equity, and environmental sustainability. Hence a paradigm shift is required at the system-wide level in the form of Integrated Urban Water Management (IUWM), which addresses tradeoffs among water users: agriculture, industry, household, and ecosystems. IUWM calls for new objectives that recognize the mutual benefits of water resources, energy, and land use management. In order to address the challenges of cities, the following principles of IUWM should be applied: Involving all stakeholders, Considering the entire water cycle as one system, Assessing a portfolio of water sources, Maximizing the benefits from wastewater; Designing adaptive systems; Urban Water Catchment Management, Integrated flood management; and low cost, high impact solutions.
Right to Water and IUWM
The National Water Framework Bill 2013 envisages that every individual has a right to a minimum quantity of potable water for essential health and hygiene and within easy reach of the household. The draft further adds that the minimum quantity of potable water shall not be less than 25 litres per capita per day, and that the quantity must be fixed by the “appropriate government”.
Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), including India Water Foundation, are increasingly concerned by some of the provisions in the Framework Bill and the fact that some states would appear to be simply copying this bill without taking into account the uniqueness and the distinct agro-ecological zones of each state. Besides, the Bill has already drawn criticism from several states like Kerala and Haryana, which have claimed that it amounts to infringing upon their rights as water is a state subject.
In our opinion, such a right should not be limited to just drinking water, but should include the right to water for livelihoods and for social and cultural needs also. While this may still be some way off, one can at least hope for a quick recognition of the right to drinking water and sanitation as a fundamental right of its own standing.
While noting that the government remains the trustee of water resources, the draft bill gives it the flexibility of roping in private sector for “some of the functions of the state”. In this context, it stipulates that “allocation and pricing” should be based “on economic principles to ensure its development costs”, and “so that water is not wasted in unnecessary uses and… utilized more gainfully and water infrastructure projects are made financially viable.”
However, the visible threats from corporatization/privatization of drinking water would be many such as water price hikes, water-mining and bulk exports, monopolistic water market sub standard water quality, threat to community ownership of water resource, corruption and lack of transparency. As a case study, if we look into the Shivanath river project (Chhattisgarh), the first case of river privatization in India with total expected cost of Rs256 crore had terrible outcomes such as supplying water at the rate of Rs.12.60/liter to industries and to railways, people denied access for fishing and bathing, media reports indicated case of this privatized river slowly drying-up, a monopoly on the water supply in the radius of 18km, government announced the scheme was constitutionally illegal and later they revoked the contract.
Besides, the Framework Bill does not take into consideration the plight of dalits and the problems they face in accessing water. Broadly speaking, the differences between dalits and non- dalits household in respect of drinking water is as follow: 27% dalit households have water sources within premises as compared to 45.2% for the general populations.19.5% of dalit households have access to drinking water sources away from their premises whereas it stands at 14.45 for the general population. 32.2% of dalit households have access to drinking water from tap as compared to 40.1% for the general population.
The private sector, especially the SMEs, should be encouraged to invest in infrastructure in water segment without jeopardizing the interests of the weaker sections and the dalits. The local government should ensure proper control, transparent management and accountability of the private sector. There should be adequate legal provision for the involvement of the CSOs from state to local levels to ensure the proper implementation of Right to Water.
Indigenous Approach
It has generally observed that the Central and State Planning bodies look upon city level water and sanitation issues in a macro perspective without taking into consideration the local geographical, socio-economic and cultural considerations and such a perspective devoid of local ground realities has often proved ineffective in tackling water and sanitation related issues at city level satisfactorily.
A comparative overview of the 2002 National Water Policy and 2012 National Water Policy as well as State Water Policies of some states for the same periods makes it discernible that most of the states have copied the National Water Policy with very minor changes. However, keeping in view the vast diversities prevalent in India in terms of geography, socio-economic conditions and cultural as well as religious customs a singular water policy cannot meet the diverse requirements owing to regional variations. Besides, cultural and religious aspects linked with water are also ignored.
A different set of policy measures is called for the cities located in the hilly areas, cities located in the coastal areas, cities located in arid and semi-arid areas etc. we strongly feel that even in a state, each city should have its water policy based on its requirements to cater to the needs of the local population. The district-level policies should form the basis of State Level Water Policy by incorporating the common features of the cities. And the State-Level Policies should form the basis of National Water Policy with other inputs from international climate change perspectives and finance requirements for infrastructure for water sector.
The City-level water plan model should emphasize on water conservation, involvement of all stakeholders, judicious use of water, rainwater harvesting, the effective use of technology, frequent capacity building of the officials of the water department and the people; and ensuring cost-effectiveness.
The successful development and implementation of an Integrated Urban Water Management (IUWM) plan is a crucial step for the realization of this vision. The primary purpose of the IUWM plan should be to develop the policies, programs and capital improvement plans necessary to fully achieve the water resource management goals at the City level.
The City-level IUWM plan should be given the statutory form specifying City’s strategic priorities for at least a future five-year period, identify the goals, strategies, success indicators, funding sources, deliverables and milestones to accomplish the strategic priorities. The plan development process must include at least one publicly noticed meeting to allow public participation in its development. The annual work plan report must detail the implementation of the strategic plan for the previous fiscal year, addressing success indicators, deliverables, and milestones.
Given this opportunity to streamline reporting to the State and more efficiently allocate staff time, the State should galvanize all the cities on similar model and deploy an annual Strategic Plan Annual Work Plan Report and these reports should be sent the Union Water Resource Ministry by each State to enable the latter to formulate National Water Policy accordingly.
City-Level Planning
The City-level Integrated Urban Water Management (IUWM) plan should contain sufficient measures to address the technological and logistic requirements of the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) as well as public water and sewerage operators along with their constant capacity building. The IUWM should ensure active role of the ULBs in managing water and related natural resources to ensure their continued availability while maximizing the benefits to the local population.
The City-level IUWM plan should provide a roadmap for the ULBs enabling them to meet the water resources challenges by identifying what needs to be accomplished, how the job will be done, and how success will be measured. In addition to identifying the City’s growing needs in water and sanitation sectors, the ULBs should identify specific priorities in their respective areas of operation and these inputs from the ULBs should be utilized by the City’s water department to prioritize project funding requests and to provide guidance to funding agencies of the State.
The following measures can assist the existing ecosystem at City-level to support resources and capacity building to newer and smaller ULBs:
ULBs and other stakeholders must move the sanitation crisis to the top of the agenda.
The City-level water department and the ULBs must ensure that policies and institutions for water supply and sanitation service delivery, as well as for water resources management and development, respond equally to the different roles, needs, and priorities of women and men.
State Government must pursue investment and reforms.
Efforts to reach the water and sanitation target must focus on sustainable service delivery, rather than construction of facilities alone.
- ULBs must empower local communities with the authority, resources, and professional capacity required to manage water supply and sanitation service delivery.
- ULBs must also ensure that the needs of poor households are met.
- The City-level authorities must elaborate coherent water resources development and management plans that aim at poverty reduction, gender equity and ecological balance.
- Government, civil society and private sector partners must support a wide range of water and sanitation technologies and service levels that are technically, socially, environmentally, and financially appropriate.
- Institutional, financial, and technological innovation must be promoted in strategic areas at the state and City level.
Civil Society Role
The Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) in active cooperation with civil society can play crucial role in working out practical and scalable solution recycling of waste water that can be driven bottom-up from community side to the State level.
India Water Foundation has some experience in recycling of industrial waste water. In November 2011, the IWF organized an International Conference on Water Use Efficiency in Industrial Sector at Jaipur (Rajasthan) in collaboration with RIICO, Govt. of Rajasthan. The outcome of this Conference has proved a game-changer in water sector in Rajasthan because in the immediate aftermath of the conference, the government of Rajasthan enacted the State Water Law for the first time and concurrently the Department of Industries of the state government announced allocation of additional plots to industrial units in the state to install water treatment plants for recycling of industrial waste water for reuse. The IWF has been persuading other State Governments as well as industrial sector to emulate the example of Rajasthan.
Role of the SMEs
The SMEs have vast potential in facilitating management of urban water supply and promote water related livelihood for the weaker sections of the society. As per existing practices the municipal waste water is treated at a specific location and the treated water is recycled. However, this process is very expensive in terms of installation of heavy machinery for water treatment and laying down of heavy pipelines for supply of recycled water to different destinations. Instead specific sites can be identified depending on the flow of waste water and small water treatment plants can be installed on these sites and water thus treated can be recycled to meet local requirements. The services and expertise of the SMEs can be roped in implementing such schemes of installing small waste water treatment plants.
The need for well-trained entrepreneurs is the catalyst for a stable economy. Entrepreneurs often are persons whose performance in the public and private sector of an economy balances the gaps between government and non-governmental activities. Through their engagement as leadership agents in society, Self reliant businesses are enhanced; skills acquisition is promoted and small and medium scale entrepreneurs given access to training and financial capital for their businesses.
The SMEs in a city can form a nodal agency with the cooperation of IWF to develop a system which uses an integrated urban water management approach. This integrated approach should include several actions such as: (i) interventions over the entire urban water cycle; (ii) optimisation of water use by reusing wastewater and preventing pollution of freshwater source; (iii) prioritisation of small-scale natural and technical systems, which are flexible, cost-effective and require low operation and maintenance
Dr Arvind Kumar*
