Jammus Water Crisis or Management Crisis

Content Table

Significance of Water

There is nothing more important to sustaining human existence than water—specifically, pure and safe water to drink. Communities thrive because of their water supply. Not only does safe drinking water sustain individuals, families, neighborhoods and communities, it is one of the most essential requirements for supporting commerce. All people appreciate having safe drinking water, but sometimes it is taken for granted. We recognize the worth of water when the well is dry, or it no longer flows readily, or when the quality of our drinking water changes.

Water Capacity and Utilization

The people of Jammu city got organized water supply in the year 1934 when Maharaja of Jammu built the first water treatment plant at Panjtirthi.  The population of Jammu at that time was in thousands and prior to 1934 the people met their water needs from ponds, wells, baulis besides river Tawi. The first tube well to augment the water supply to Jammu city was drilled in 1956 at Partap Bagh, near river Tawi. The drilling of tube wells continued with drilling of 40 new tube wells till 1984, when another water treatment of capacity 24.3 MLD was constructed at Sitlee, Nagrota. Presently, the Jammu city is supplied from 6 water treatment plants and about 250 tube wells having total installed capacity of 412 MLD. This installed capacity of 412 MLD, produces 227 MLD out of which 100 MLD is consumed, whereas the requirement of water for Jammu is 125 MLD. The empirical estimates of water loss/wastage are 40-50 percent as water audit is not in practice.

Jammu has already utilized full capacity of River Tawi and now has an eye on Chenab Water. Presently every pinch of water scarcity is met with tapping groundwater. The Jammu city water supply is 100% electricity dependent and failure of electricity for long period can become disastrous. With the lowering of water table due to drought it becomes difficult to tap lowered water table and the cost of pumping also increases with replacement of pumps with higher duty pumps.

Crisis of Management

There is gross mismanagement of water. Jammu City has abundant ground water resource which is of good quality by virtue of being underground and protected from any kind of surface water contamination. Drilling of more and more tube wells not only create pathway for abstraction but also pathways for contamination if tube wells are not sealed for sanitary protection. Most of tube wells are poorly designed and constructed, and are located near dirty nallahs, canal and ponds and are vulnerable to contamination. The Ranbir canal has virtually become a foul smelling gutter and dirty water from them can easily seep into these drinking water tube wells posing health hazard to the water consumer. The threat is not only from bacteriological contamination but also from chemical contamination from fertilizers and pesticides used in farming.  

The problem is not of water scarcity but manmade water crisis due to bad and poor management of water. Basically water management in Public Health Engineering is supplying the people potable water which is wholesome, in adequate quantity, of good quality, at adequate pressure and when and where it is needed and then collecting used water, treating it to acceptable quality standards, reusing it, disposing it safely. In Jammu the job of supplying water is done by PHED having separate ministry, the job of collecting is done by UEED/JMC which are under separate ministry. The department at the service delivery level like PHED / UEED/ JMC are managed by the graduate/diploma civil engineers who have elementary knowledge of public health engineering and mechanical engineers who do not know anything about public health engineering and are entrusted the job because pumps are used in the water systems. There are few in service engineers who have acquired post graduation and have specialized in PHE/EE at the cost of government exchequer as in service engineers but Jammu & Kashmir government does not need them in PHED/ UEED and they are posted in department not related to their specialization. This is just one example of mismanagement.

A recent comprehensive review of forty years of World Bank experience in water and sanitation pin points, “institutional failure as the most frequent and persistent cause of poor performance by public water utilities. The World Health Organization expert committee has already pointed out common fallacy that environmental sanitation services in underdeveloped countries can be planned and executed by persons having little or no skill.

Missing Public Health Engineering: Political Ignorance

There must be development of public health engineering in collaboration with other professional discipline required for the study and planning of an environmental sanitation works, to find simple and economical sanitary methods for field application. Without such an approach, wasteful and ineffective methods may be employed which actually will cause irreparable damage. The less developed a country, the more complex is the task of solving its environmental problem.

Public Health Engineers are assumed to have a broad and thorough understanding of the whole range of environmental conditions that effect human well being, to be well qualified by aptitude, training and experience to serve as true professionals at the various levels of responsibility relating to the environment in public health and associated organizations and in the upper echelons to be able to take their place alongside their counterparts in other professions in assuming responsible administrative duties and other public health functions.
 The expert committee report says,” the assumption, perhaps too widely made, that underdeveloped regions are not prepared for the services of best trained specialists in environmental sanitation can readily be contested. Countries of minimum resource are most in need of highest expert services available, both for diagnosis of need and for planning of solutions. The relegation of these functions to less adequately prepared persons results form a great misunderstanding of the complexity of the problems in environmental sanitation encountered in areas of low economical level. These problems for their solutions require the impact of high intelligence, training and experience even when the number of persons possessing such qualification is necessarily a minimum.  It is unsound practice literally to send a boy to do a man’s job.

Regarding developing nations the World development report 1992 points out, “Public Water utilities are the key elements of patronage system, overstaffing is often rife and appointments to senior positions are frequently made on the basis of political connections rather than merit.  It further states that,” engineering of public works is dominated by bureaucracies, employment security is total, promotions are by seniority alone, good work goes unrecognized, poor work is not subjected to sanctions and  an atmosphere of lethargy prevails. The direct consequence is construction at high cost, low qualities facilities; the indirect effects include big non professional labor force”.

Suffering Million of Jammu

A research on Jammu water supply shows that 87.4 percent  of household are covered by house connection,  56 percent  household get water supply for less than an hour per day, 96 percent  household spend extra money besides paying water tariff on purchasing water , pumping, electricity consumption and on treatment methods which range from boiling, chlorination and installation of commercial filters. 60 percent households are dissatisfied with quantity as well as quality of water supplied, 55 percent household are not satisfied with punctuality of daily services.

 In 70 percent households women are responsible to collect and store water, 80 percent households have installed pumping equipments and have to spend on electricity to obtain water. 76 percent  household have made their in-house water supply safe and continuous by constructing underground and roof top tanks, connected with the pumping equipments , commercial filters etc. 78 percent  households have flush latrines which consume good amount of water and this demand will increase tremendously after provision of sewerage system in Jammu city in near future. 33 percent households have two or more than two connections and pay only for one connection. Only 16 percent of household desire 24*7 continuous water supply as there is less trust in PHED and awareness in households about necessity of continuous water supply. 67 percent households desire six hours of supply daily.
 The study shows that 78 percent households have converted one hour to two hours daily public water supply of PHED into (24*7) continuous water supply within their house premise by constructing underground and roof top storage, installation of pumping equipments, water filters. This shows that they desire and demand for 24*7 continuous and safe water supplies. 80 percent households are spending extra/coping cost to meet up their demands for continuous and safe water supply. During scarce summer season they even spend for tanker service to supplement the supply by PHED.

85 percent households are ready to pay more for improved services, but the reliability of existing services is poor as only 40 percent households are satisfied with quality and quantity of water supplied, whereas 60 percent households are not satisfied with the punctuality of service.

 The cost of poor and unreliable services is coping cost met by consumer in addition to (1) Health cost (2) Economic cost (3) Productivity cost (morbidity). Only 24 percent households are satisfied with safety and quality of water whereas only 30 percent are satisfied with service delivery by PHED. The study reflected that use of water for non potable use is very high in Jammu and wastage is 48 percent.

There is wide gap between installed capacity, operational capacity, and utilized capacity. Wastage/water loss of 48 percent is very high between operational capacity and utilized capacity. Many water installations are up to 50 years old. 70 percent of water supply to Jammu city is met from tube well, where 30 percent demand is met from water from River Tawi. The Jammu city is divided into water haves and water have-nots. Those near or downstream of spring line have abundance of water whereas Kandi Belt is devoid of water and acts as water shed to Sirowal (water abundant) belt. This disparity of availability of water is becoming conflict as people resist transfer of water to other area.

Demoralized and Unprofessional Work Force

A survey conducted on 100 employees of PHED regarding autonomy, human resource development and Capacity building, tariff structure and service delivery reflected that only 15 percent satisfied with Technical and Managerial function and 99 percent attributed political interference in Operation and maintenance, transfer and postings. Only 1 percent employees were satisfied with Human resource development and capacity building.
100 percent employees said that the present tariff is not sustainable and only 8 percent  said that their consumers are satisfied. Above 80 percent employees of PHED said that there is a need for quality as well as quantity improvement in water service delivery. 86 percent employees said that the consumer is well aware about the uses of water. The above endorses that water is mismanaged and the present water crisis is mere a man made crisis.
There are numerous examples where you see leaking pipes, overflowing water tanks, badly operated water treatment plants and water quality surveillance is almost absent. The established Indian Standard recommends testing of 28 parameters to be tested before supplying water to human beings. The PHED is generally insensitive to all this.

The city of Jammu has grown from few square kilometer to about 227 square kilometer. The population has grown from few thousands to about 12.0 lac. The living standard of people has increased with better housing, cars etc. The universities, colleges and institutions have increased manifold. The on going sewerage project in Jammu on completion will increase the requirement of water tremendously. Meeting water needs of people of Jammu will be challenging in the future. The challenge will be to provide improved water supply at the cost which are sustainable. The policy shift should be from water development to water management and from mere asset creation to managing the asset in a better way professionally and efficiently.

Another example of mismanagement is construction of overhead tanks (OHT). More than 60 percent  of household receive water from public utility in their private underground  water tanks from where they pump water to their roof top tanks and by installing aqua guard filters provide themselves 24* 7 continuous and safe water supply. PHED opens supply from overhead tanks constructed by them to deliver water to consumer in underground water tanks. This defeats the function of overhead tanks constructed of 18 -21 meter high, so that it can provide water to households in their roof top tanks. The PHED creates assets and never bothers what function it is serving. Simply this mismanagement leads to increased pressure at point of delivery, more leakage, wastage of cost of providing staging height provided to overhead tanks and last but not the least loss of public trust.

Poor and the Inequity of Water

The so called subsidized water supply with water tariff of Rs 30/- per month per household is a cruel joke with a poor, and luxury for the rich and famous. There are instances of poor getting scarcity and meager water supply ranging from 1.0 hours daily to once a week supply in upper reaches of Jammu. This is a great example of inequity with bias towards rich and famous who get connection on rising mains or free tanker service at their doorstep on a phone call. There are numerous illegal connections, installation of online pumps and connections from rising main which otherwise are prohibited. There are numerous private and public institutions like hotels, industries that either pay less or nothing in the PHED coffers but pay illegally to get water tanker/piped supplies in absence of rational framework of tariff structure based on actual supply.There are no water audits at the level of production/supply and consumption and assessment are based on either rules of thumb or imagination of officers.

There is one silver line behind all clouds and i.e. more than 90 percent household in the city enjoy access to water through private house connection irrespective of quantity and quality of service delivery.

In every household women and children are responsible for collection of water. The lady of the house waits for the water till it trickles down from the tap or in the underground tank of the consumer. There is not punctuality of service with the result that either women or children are tied up with the duty of collection of water. The richer may have servants to this job. The PHED own the responsibilities of service delivery up to fence wall and from then onwards women manage water. They pump water to roof top and provide 24 * 7 continuous water supplies to family members. The problem created are mental tension, wastage of time, inconvenience in double/triple handling of water, adding to the electricity bill to the individual consumers, additional treatment ( like adding alum, bleaching powder or installation of branded filters), the cost of underground tank and roof top tank. All these problems will be eliminated if PHED managed the water well and above all the indirect cost borne by the consumer. Ultimately consumer is at loss as he  spends  himself, he pays PHED, and he pays as tax paper out of which funds are provided to PHED to manage the water for them.

The Path Ahead

Whether it is minister in charge, local MLA, Commissioner in charge, Chief engineer; all of them talk of asset creation, laying of pipelines, water treatment plants, constructing overhead tanks, ground level service reservoirs and more and more tube wells but no one thinks to manage these created assets in more efficient manner and improving the service delivery.  There must be some faults either in the water supply system or in the people managing it. Water audit and water quality surveillance is negligible. The Geographical Information and the Management Information of water supply system is absent. In absence of adequate water legislation and water regulation, bad water management leads to cost to the consumer directly as well as indirectly.

Huge investment for drilling tube wells or water transportation from Chenab can be postponed if existing system is improved, not only for production and transportation but also distribution of water to provide improved water supplies by minimizing water loss.
 The 70 percent water shed of river Tawi has turned barren, thereby causing reduced recharge of groundwater. Jammu has only 54 rainy days and it rains only for 100 hours in whole year. All the rainwater flows untapped to Pakistan. Not only surface water but groundwater also flows to Pakistan. With increased dependence on groundwater by drilling new tube wells, our dependence and demand for energy increases and life of tube wells is just 15 years they cost higher and higher not only in construction but also in operation and maintenance by going deeper and deeper to tap water which was stored for more than 100 years. To tap surface water, we have to go farther to exploit new resources, which are not only expensive but construct, operate and maintain.

 The Politicians, bureaucrats, the technocrats and the consumer need to ponder whether everything is right with paper and systems, and the people who manage, the people who plan. Will this system sustain with increasing population, increasing demands and ineffective planning, implementation and delivery as is being practiced. Are we heading towards water crisis due to crisis of management of our water resources?
The melting of glaciers, the pollution of surface as well as groundwater, depletion of ground water if not alarming one, is at least a warning signal to mankind to change its way.

A comparative analysis of 15 countries and at European and global levels reveal that specific individuals or organizations have played a crucial role in instigating and implementing change in water management practices. Addressing water issues such as water scarcity and water pollution require major changes or transitions in existing policy and policy practice. The change may be from supply to demand driven approach, from hydraulic parameter design to ecosystem and water shed based water policies or towards more community participatory mode of Governance of water.

Research all over the world has shown that most efficient public water utilities have three things in common i.e. (1) Autonomy: freedom from political interference. The reluctance of government institutions to cede decision-making and financial power to utilities leaves utilities with practically no financial management accountability – leading them to place political interests and their own interests above those of users. (2) Accountability: the utility must be answerable to all stakeholders, including users, for policy decisions, resource use and performance; and (3) Consumer Orientation: towards all people within the designated service area, both current and potential users, including reporting and listening to residents and responding to residents’ views in an effort to meet users’ needs and improve services, and our PHED is devoid of all three. The present supply driven approach needs to be substituted by demand driven approach, consumer awareness and participation, professional capacity building, water audit, metering of supplies and rational tariff as per intended use i.e. domestic/commercial can play significant role in improving the system.

Many governments in the 1990s embarked on ambitious reforms of their urban water supply and sanitation services that often included delegating the management of utilities to private operators under various contractual arrangements. Hopes were high that public-private partnerships (PPPs) would turn around poorly performing public utilities by bringing new expertise, financial resources, and a more commercial orientation. Since 1990, more than 260 contracts have been awarded to private operators for the management of urban water and sanitation utilities in the developing world. Despite limitations related to data accessibility and reliability, and the ambiguity of indicators, the analysis of the four dimensions of performance (access, quality of service, operational efficiency, and tariff levels) suggests that the overall performance of water PPP projects has been generally quite satisfactory. Several PPP projects performed well on coverage (access), service quality, and efficiency together. More performed well in one or two key aspects.

We have already scored high on corruption and bad civic services in recent surveys conducted in Jammu and Kashmir. Our state is a tourist state and tourists especially foreigners prefer to drink mineral water than from a public tap. Isn’t it responsibility of PHED to build trust that not only local residents, but even domestic as well as foreign tourist prefers to drink from public tap provided by PHED.

Resources

The issues in this article are covered in the thesis, Public Water Utilities – Sustainable Strategic Options for Jammu District, written by:

Dr. Sanjeev Kumar Chadha

BE (Civil), ME (Public Health), PhD (Water Management)

MIE (I), MIWWA, MIPHE (I), MIAEM, MWTO

Assistant Project Manager (Water Supply), JKERA, Jammu

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