Public Water Utilities - Sustainable Strategic Options
Safe water is one of the most important felt needs in public health in developing countries in the twenty first century. The eminent economist and Prime Minister of India, Man Mohan Singh, has noted that if India’s current economic growth rate is to be maintained and if all the people of the country, especially the poor and the vulnerable, are to share the benefits of rapid economic growth, two resource issues need priority consideration: energy and water.
Urban water management consists of three fundamental, but interrelated, services. First is the provision to households of clean water that is potable without additional treatment. Second is the collection of wastewater from all households and from industrial and commercial sources, which thereafter requires proper treatment and disposal in an environment-friendly way. Third is the efficient disposal of storm water, especially during the monsoon seasons. Often, only the first, provision of drinking water, is considered, while the other two services receive inadequate attention. Furthermore, even for drinking water supply, the focus tends to be on quantity; quality issues receive much less attention.
Sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meets their own needs
With increasing population, industrialization and development the demand for water is increasing manifolds day by day, whereas availability of usable water is decreasing by increased environmental degradation and pollution.
Content Table
Public Water Utilities - India
In the five decades since independence, India has witnessed phenomenal development of water resources and has largely met successfully the demand of water for many diverse uses in the country.
India’s finite and fragile water resources are stressed and depleting, while Sectoral demands (including drinking water, agriculture, industry and others) are growing rapidly in line with urbanization, population increase, rising incomes and industrial growth and also increased areas under agriculture.
The problem becomes extremely grave with use of pesticides in farming, absence of pollution control of industrial and domestic wastes which are discharged into existing water bodies untreated. The situation becomes graver as all surface and ground waters are getting contaminated resulting in non-availability of usable water.
In the past water has been developed rather than managed. Comprehensive management on a river basin basis, multi-Sectoral, conjunctively, for both surface and ground water, incorporating both quantity and quality aspects of water is largely lacking.
Management of water has been through top down approach and has virtually become a government monopoly. A supply side approach exploiting additional water resources has predominantly been used.
This approach has resulted in major economic, social and environmental costs. There is greater need to address these problems as India’s needs are particularly severe because of its rapidly developing water constraints, environmental problems, huge population, regional inequalities in water availability, the federal administrative structure and rapid demographic and economic growth.
Public Water Utilities - The City of Jammu
The city of Jammu is fast expanding due to migration from rural areas and has also population load of pilgrimage and tourists, thereby leading to acute water shortage. Master plan for water supply to cater to the needs of Jammu city has been framed in which it is proposed to tap river Chenab as potential source of water but the project is not taking off due to absence of adequate phased funding. The quantity and quality of water supplied to rural as well as urban area is very poor. Due to inadequate pressure in pipes, the urban areas in Jammu region have witnessed cent-percent installation of online pumps and have invested to meet up the coping cost to make in-house water supply 24*7.
With current trend towards political and administrative decentralization and in the context of 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments in India, cities and Panchayati Raj institutions are emerging as stronger forces of local institutions for managing social, economic and health issues of the people. The transfer of power to urban bodies/Panchayati Raj Institutions is the policy of Government of India. This will definitely strengthen the people to manage their own affairs but in absence of financial support, technical know-how and institutional reforms will complicate the matter more for worse.
Public Utility Model
There is need to evolve a public utility model which shall serve the purpose of public water utility and also facilitate the transfer of power to local bodies/Panchayati Raj Institutions successfully.
The study investigated the current scenario keeping in view below mentioned research objectives:-
1. To study and analyze the adequacy of water supply systems in relation to its access to the targeted groups.
2. To study availability/reliability of water services at required service level in quantity and quality.
3. To study the professionalism and delivery mechanism of the water supply system.
4. To propose public water utility model for Jammu and Kashmir state.
The questionnaires were administered on 400 water consuming households and 100 employees of PHED Jammu in rural and urban areas of Jammu District to understand knowledge, attitude, and practice of households regarding Service Coverage, Efficiency, Reliability, Financial Stability and Affordability.
A questionnaire was administered to 100 employees of public water utility providing the services to rural as well as urban habitations to assess their perception about sustainable options like autonomy, tariff structure, and financial health, human resource at various levels, political interference, job security, and other institutional and social factors impacting the sustainability of public water utilities.
The data from 60 Households each for five urban zones of Jammu, namely Old City, Bakshi Nagar, Talab Tillo, Roop Nagar and Gandhi Nagar and 50 Households from two rural zones of Sirowal (Domana and Rajpura Village) and Kandi (Katal Batal and Tanda Village) is analyzed and interpreted with respect to Service Coverage, Efficiency, Reliability, Financial Stability and Affordability.
Twenty Public Water Utilities in India are compared with water utility of Jammu to evaluate their performance with respect to Water Coverage.
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
