swajaldhara: ‘reversed’ realities in rural water supply in india

1 Introduction

Despite decades of planning and water sectorinitiatives, rural water supply poses seriouschallenges in India with low coverage, seriouswater quality issues and unsustainability of thesource. Prior to the 1990s, water managementhad been the responsibility of state-owned publicutilities. The State was recognised as trustee ofthese resources and the prime player in basicservice delivery. A top-down, supply-ledinstitutional structure, treated the end-users asmere beneficiaries and not direct participants inthe decision-making process. The water sectorreforms have shifted this locus of service deliveryto other players such as private sector and localcommunities (Cullet 2007).

The International Drinking Water Supply andSanitation Decade (1980–90), also known as the‘Water Decade’, also recognised the limitationsof the top-down approach to service delivery andencouraged participation by other stakeholders.In this context, the New Delhi Statement that inmany ways marks the culmination of the decade,pressed for institutional reforms for anintegrated management of water and specifically

stressed the participation of community in themanagement of services, with special emphasison the participation of women (United Nations1990). The Dublin Statement (United Nations1992) further reiterated the principle ofcommunity management and put a premium onwater by declaring water as an economic good(UNCED 1992). It is this global context ofinstitutional reform that provides the normativepush for restructuring the rural drinking watersector in India.

This article critically investigates the objective ofinstitutional reform through the principle ofcommunity management1 underlined in the NewDelhi Statement and later the Dublin Statementand discusses the limitations of the reformprocess in the context of Swajaldhara. Followingthis introduction, the second section of thearticle explores how the reforms entered thelexicon of the Indian water policy discourse andstates that an alignment at the policymakinglevel paved the way for the introduction and up-scaling of the model. The third section highlightsthe policy practice dichotomy of the Swajaldharaexperience against the complex realities of rural

37

Swajaldhara: ‘Reversed’ Realities inRural Water Supply in India

Shilpi Srivastava*

Abstract For the last two decades and more, nations, international organisations and civil society, both local

and global, have been rallying for the cause of ‘efficient’ and ‘equitable’ water supply and distribution. To

this end, the New Delhi Statement, a precursor to the Dublin Statement, in many ways marks the first step

in reforming the water sector. This article explores how ideas of community ownership and participation

lauded in the New Delhi Statement and reiterated in the Dublin Statement later translate into practice

when they meet the complex sociopolitical and institutional realities at the ground. It locates the genesis of

Swajaldhara, the flagship rural water reform programme in India, the origin of which can be traced to the

Delhi–Dublin configuration and shows how a success model became a story of poor implementation defined

in the language of ‘gaps and slippages’ or ‘policy reversals’. It argues further that the objective of ‘Some for

All’ still remains a target yet to be achieved in many parts of the country. The work underlines the

disconnect between the global paradigms and local manifestations of such ideas and investigates the reasons

for the same. Based on field research in two villages of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, the article unpacks

the processes that lead to policy–practice dichotomy.

IDS Bulletin Volume 43 Number 2 March 2012 © 2012 The Author. IDS Bulletin © 2012 Institute of Development Studies

Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA

Uttar Pradesh. In conclusion, the experiences ofSwajaldhara in the context of the objectives ofthe New Delhi Statement are assessed.

2 Embedding Swajaldhara in the national waterdiscourseRecognised as the flagship reform programme inthe rural drinking water sector, Swajaldhara waslaunched on 25 December 2002 by the PrimeMinister of the country, Mr Atal BehariVajpayee. It was seen as the convergence ofinitiatives taken by the national government,non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and theexternal support agencies to promote thecommunity-led participatory approach in ruraldrinking water supply initiative (GoI 2003). Theprogramme underlined community participationin the planning and implementation phases. Itintroduced the concept of demand management,whereby the community will be able to ‘choose’appropriate and affordable technology.2 It alsoplaced user value on water through a 10 per centcommunity contribution in the planning phaseand monthly water rentals to maintain the waterinfrastructure. It therefore marked a gradualshift towards the role of community participationand a decentralised pattern of service delivery,with the government playing the role offacilitator (World Bank 2006). A basic underlyingassumption of the scheme was that cost sharingwould enable participation and implementationof water asset ownership.

First, at the national level, there was persistentdissatisfaction with the supply-drivenapproaches. Throughout the Water Decade,several studies and review projects highlightedthe drawbacks of technocratic systems, withproblems of unsustainable technology and poordelivery systems. Lack of community ownershipwas highlighted as one of the major reasons forsuch failures (WWAP 2006). The Swajal projectand the Sector Reform Initiative (1999), basedon the principles of demand management,provided a positive backdrop and a viableinstitutional alternative to the inert structure ofservice delivery.

Second, the National Water Policy of 2002,stressed changes in the institutional mechanismin terms of a multi-sectoral, multidisciplinaryand participatory approach, whereby ‘existinginstitutions at various levels need to beappropriately re-oriented and re-organized’

(GoI 2002: 3).The policy also stressed theparticipatory approach to water resourcesmanagement. It noted:

Management of water resources for diverseuses should incorporate a participatoryapproach; involving not only variousgovernmental agencies but also stakeholders,in an effective and decisive manner, in variousaspects of planning, design, development andmanagement of water resources schemes (GoI 2002: 5).

Sangameswaran (2006) argues that there is aperceptive link between the national water policydiscussions and the conventional wisdom thatwas reflected in the World Bank documents andthe Swajal project concerning the user charges.These measures had considerable impact in thedrafting of the tenth Five Year Plan (2002–07)document and the National Water Policy of 2002,which accepted the community pays principle(Nayar and James 2008).

Third, the deliberations at ministerial level, suchas the Cochin Declaration in 1999, also ratifiedthe alternative approach of communitymanagement; the states were willing toexperiment with the idea of the demand-responsive approach in rural water supply (WSP2000). Mr Venkaiah Naidu, Minister of RuralDevelopment (2002), favoured reform in servicedelivery of rural water. Stressing the inefficienciesof the erstwhile supply-driven approach(Accelerated Rural Water Supply Programme,ARWSP), which was characterised by seriousunder-performance, he noted that a governmentrun without the ‘participation of stakeholders’,where water is considered as a free service to beprovided by the government, ‘stifled’ thedevelopment of more efficient, low-cost optionsfor service delivery and denied users the right todemand better services (Naidu 2002).

Fourth, the presence of Panchayats (villagegoverning body) as the third tier of governanceprovided effective institutional support for theinception of a decentralised model of communityparticipation. For the government, the reformprinciple in Swajaldhara was actually aimed atstrengthening the structure of local governanceby generating robust institutions of servicedelivery (Naidu 2002). Community participationand local governance were not regarded as

Srivastava Swajaldhara: ‘Reversed’ Realities in Rural Water Supply in India38

competing paradigms but were tied in asynergistic relationship, where empoweredcommunities could help in effective ruralgovernance.

The political mood in the country at the nationaland state level looked upbeat and positive inundertaking the new institutional mechanism ofservice delivery in the form of Swajaldhara. Thepolitical consensus helped in the up-scaling of theSector Reform project into Swajaldhara in 2002.

3 Policy meets practice: Swajaldhara in BareillyUttar Pradesh is the most populous state inIndia. As per the population census of 2001, itaccounts for 16 per cent of India’s 102,702 crorepopulation. Approximately 79 per cent of thepopulation still lives in rural areas (GoI 2007).The rate of urbanisation, which is considered anindicator of development, has been slow in thestate (Jha 2007). The Swajaldhara programmetook place in Bareilly district in the Westernregion of the state. It was proposed in fivevillages but was only operational in two, Bhartauland Chaneta, both located on the urban fringe.3

The programme was approved in 2004/05 andbecame operational in 2007. It was envisagedthat the community should actively participatein the planning phase as well as theimplementation of the programme. The localNGOs – support organisations (SOs) in this case– were chosen to facilitate communitymobilisation and training.

3.1 ParticipationThe villagers identified the tank as the bada nal(big tap) or the tanki (tank). Very few villagersand some members of the committee were awarethat a support organisation was involved in theprocess of establishing the scheme in theirvillage. In Chaneta, the villagers knew that therewas a pani ki tanki (water tank) in place but thelogistics of its inception and introduction wereseemingly unknown to them. Conversations withneighbours or villagers’ proximity to the GramPradhan (head of the governing body) determinedhow informed they were about the proceedings inthe village in general, and the tank in particular.Local patronage ties were effectively used inmobilising the rural population. This was visiblein the process of generating demand forconnections when the scheme was introduced.The operator at Bhartaul remarked that anumber of meetings were held. However, not

many villagers could remember a khuli (open)meeting when the scheme was introduced. Manyof them were sceptical that a meeting had takenplace, and one of the villagers said that themeeting was held behind closed doors and therewas no consultation process.

This is significant, as the nature of informationthat was transferred to the villagers variedgreatly. Most of them were aware that they hadto contribute an amount of money to get aconnection; however the process was determinednot by them but by the key members in thesociopolitical set-up of the village. A resident inBhartaul remarked over the issue of change inthe rents: ‘The poor people have no say: initiallythe rent was 15 rupees; who has made it to 30rupees?’

The Village Water and Sanitation Committee(VWSC) is the committee of the Panchayat thatoversees the programme in the village. Somevillagers were not even aware that such acommittee existed, and the members themselvesdidn’t know that they were members of it. Thiswas confirmed in my interview with the GramPradhan at Bhartaul when he pointed out that the11 members of the committee were not aware oftheir membership. Either the members’ namesexisted on paper only, or the members hadchosen to disassociate themselves from thecommittee due to local politics anddissatisfaction with the committee.

Given the dominance of the Gram Pradhans in thelandscape of the villages, they handled theoperations of the committee. No meetings wereheld and any discussions held in the villagesseemed to assume the decisions made by thePradhan. The residence of the Pradhan at Bhartauland the clinic in Chaneta had emerged asimportant sites of decision-making for thewelfare of the villages. However, meetings wereseemingly absent from the calendar of the GramPanchayat.4

The local practices and perceptions shaped theworking of the VWSC and also the processthrough which Swajaldhara made its entry intothe villages. In a context where participation wasless understood as an inclusionary practice andmore of a ceremonial exercise, it challenged thebottom-up notion of Swajaldhara from the start.The overarching role of the Gram Pradhan stunted

IDS Bulletin Volume 43 Number 2 March 2012 39

the functioning of the VWSC, and not manyvillagers seemed dissatisfied with its lack offunctioning.

3.2 Community ownershipThe decentralised bottom-up approach ofSwajaldhara was strongly embedded in the ideaof community. The policy envisaged that once thevillagers could relate to the water infrastructureas their own, they would be able to sustain andmanage it. This idea arose as a strong counter tothe top-down planning and implementationmodel. One of the serious lacunas that plaguedthe earlier policy models was that the users weretreated more as subjects than participants in theprocess. In the context of Bareilly, whereparticipation in the planning phase was minimaland there existed a high level of informationasymmetry in the working of the committeeitself, the idea of community appeared as merefiction rather than reality.

Who owns the tank?In a landscape ridden with informationasymmetry at all levels, many villagers inBhartaul and Chaneta did not treat the tank astheir own. For them, it either belonged to thesarkar (government) or was the result of theefforts of a benign and concerned Gram Pradhan.In my field visits, the local people referred toSwajaldhara tank as the bada nal (big tap) or thesarkari nal (government’s tap). The incentive fortaking up the scheme was guided by economicreasons, as they were to pay less for the waterconnection than they usually had to pay undernormal circumstances.5 For a tap connectionunder the Swajaldhara programme, the villagershad to pay 900 rupees in Bhartaul and 750rupees in Chaneta, for which they would havepreviously paid approximately 3,000 rupees. Thisreduction of payment was the central point ofmobilisation among the villagers.

The idea of a demand-driven scheme met with aparadox when the Gram Pradhan in Chaneta,regarding the inception of the scheme, told methat ‘sarkari kaam-kaaj hai … sab upar se hoke aatahai’ (this is government’s work, it gets done fromabove). In Chaneta, where there were fewerconnections and water quality was a concern,villagers blamed the government for thedilapidated state of the infrastructure. Thereseemed to be an understanding that thegovernment was to be held responsible for the

mismanagement of affairs and they should dosomething about it.

The idea of community ownership was institutedto counter the traditional belief of patronage bythe government and inculcate some feeling ofstakeholder participation. However, in a contextwhere people have relied on the government forbasic services, the idea of management andownership was starkly absent. The roots of thetop-down model went deep enough to becountered by a singular idea of a demand-drivenscheme of community ownership where thecommunity was not even aware that they werethe ones who had to maintain it.

3.3 Paying for water?With an ambiguous idea of community in thelocal discourse of Swajaldhara, one could notavoid seeing problems associated with thelopsided view on collective action. In bothvillages, less than 50 per cent of the money wascollected. This led to a maintenance deficit inthe villages. Used to the top-down approach ofservice delivery, which Swajaldhara attempted tochange but fell short of countering, manyvillagers thought that the tank belonged to thegovernment and were not comfortable with theidea of paying for it.

Ambiguous rules and the fluid community ofusers had led to the emergence of a parallelgroup of free riders who were beneficiaries of thescheme but were not prepared to pay for water.The prevalence of these free riders dissuadedothers from paying for their water. The issue ofwater quality in Chaneta made the water supplya valuable commodity. The households that could‘afford to pay’ for water were doing so, since theyhad no recourse: ‘Even if they ask us for 100rupees, we will still have to pay, how can we staywithout water?’, replied an aaganwadi (basichealth) worker in Chaneta. Households that hadmanaged to get connections were deemed‘willing to pay’ from their meagre resources. InChaneta, despite quality concerns, poorerhouseholds could not afford to pay and used thepoor quality water.

Some villagers expressed their anguish at theidea of paying for water. A resident in Chanetastated that a number of people belong to thelabour class and a large proportion of thepopulation is below the poverty line and said,


‘You cannot expect them to pay’. The watersupply in Chaneta also suffered frominfrastructural problems, especially theintermittent supply of water due to recurringfaults. This both discouraged willingness to payand household ability to pay. Some people whoalready had connections were no longer willingto pay the rents in the absence of a water supplyand instead used the ‘yellow water’. Thisadversely affected the agenda of increasingconnections, as most of the people perceived it asa failed investment.

3.4 Where are the women?Women were identified as the key beneficiaries ofthe programme (GoI 2003). Policy documentsgave due recognition to this fact and underlinedthe need for active participation of women in theworking of the committee. However, the non-participation of women seemed to have beenstructured in the institutional implementation ofthe project. The State Water and SanitationMission (SWSM) personnel at Lucknow regardedit as too lofty an objective to be pursued, as thiswas seemingly impractical in the rural context ofUttar Pradesh. The policy implementers, quiteaware of the patriarchal context, were notenthusiastic about the empowerment agendawithin the policy. Within Swajaldhara, themobilisation and participation of women was notvisible in these two villages. Women weredefinitely the target users within the scheme butthe patriarchal set-up of these villages preventedtheir full mobilisation. In Bhartaul, womenmanaged to enter the discourse of Swajaldhara inthe mobilisation phase but they were relegated tothe private realm of the household once the tankwas put in place. Their presence was instrumentalin the phase of mobilisation but theirparticipation in decision-making was absent.

3.5 Role and accountability of the supportorganisations (SOs)The role of the SOs was to prepare and train thecommunity to maintain the scheme. Theseorganisations were engaged to give aparticipatory framework to the project. Theywere the channel of communication between thebureaucracy, i.e. the District Water andSanitation Committee, the SWSM and thevillagers. The SOs, given their proximity to thelocal context were delegated the responsibilityfor selecting the villages. After a field survey, aDetailed Project Report was prepared by them to

be sent to the SWSM, to approve and releasefunds for the scheme.

The selection of villages was based on the abilityto generate demand for new water schemesamong the villagers. Most of the proposedvillages were in close proximity to the city. Thegeneration of demand rested on people’s abilityto agree to pay for the scheme. As stated earlier,not many villagers were aware of anyorganisation working in the village. The villagersin Bhartaul and Chaneta took them to bethekedaars (private operators) and their role ascivil society actors was not visible in the localdiscourse. In Chaneta, the usual complaint wasthat SO personnel did not consult the peopleduring their work and if the villagers raised anyquestions, they would be snubbed as beingunaware and uneducated.

The attitude of the local bureaucracy and theSOs, when dealing with the villagers, was one ofsuperiority and prejudice, reflecting their beliefthat villagers would not have the technical know-how to maintain a tank. Moreover, it isinteresting to note that the SOs were perceivedto be a link between the villagers and thebureaucracy and seem to have been caught in aparadox where the bureaucracy treated them asthe voice of the people whereas the villagers sawthe SOs as an imposition from above.

4 ConclusionThe New Delhi Statement strongly emphasisedcommunity management beyond participationand stressed the need to develop linkagesbetween national plans and community needs.However, the case study reflects a contradictoryimage of one-way traffic, where the idea ofcommunity ownership was channelled through atop-down process of bureaucratic delivery.Besides the local bureaucracy, it is also the roleof NGOs – or here, the SOs – which needs to becritically investigated. Implanted in a contextwhere the top-down model of service delivery wasdeeply embedded within the local institutions,the district level and the SO, the concept ofdemand-driven scheme and communityownership faced systemic reversals. The localpractices of democracy and participation alsoinfluenced the process. The local institutionsreconstructed the core ideas within Swajaldhara;these included concepts as such as participationand community ownership. Moreover, the


practices of informal institutions such aspatriarchy, patronage and local clientelism alsoshaped the implementation of the scheme.

The idea of community, which was stronglyembedded in the policy discourse and was thebedrock of the flagship programme, did not holdstrong by the time it reached the village – thepotential and the intention had been filtered out.The community was still a group of beneficiarieswho had to be supplied with water, rather thanagents who could participate in the operationand maintenance of the scheme. Marginalised atthe inception of the scheme, i.e. in the planningphase, the village community/user group wasmore in the status of subject beneficiaries than

citizen participants. Although designed to be abottom-up approach, Swajaldhara becameembedded in a top-down model of servicedelivery and faced policy reversals.6

The case study discussed above shows how reformsthat are articulated through global and nationalconsensus face critical challenges on the ground. Itstresses the need to take a more nuanced approachto the mechanisms of the frontline service deliverythat include local bureaucracy. Supportorganisations and local governance structures arekey to the reform process. It is this space thatdemands greater attention and possiblyintervention to address and substantively extendthe boundaries of ‘Some for All’.


Notes* This article is based on the field research

undertaken as part of the author’s MPhilstudy at the Centre for the Study of Law andGovernance, Jawaharlal Nehru University,India during 2008–09.

1 There has been a robust tradition of communitymanagement of water in the pre-reform era inIndia. The article analyses the reform inducedprinciple of community management.

2 The approach of demand management wasincreasingly promoted by the World Bank tosteer domestic water sector policies in variousparts of the world, especially Asia and Africa(Joshi 2004). A major thrust in implementingdemand responsive approaches in India camefrom the World Bank–UNDP Water andSanitation Programme through the SwajalProject (1996–2002) that became theforerunner to Swajaldhara.

3 What makes these villages interesting is theirperi-urban nature: both had a large populationof retired army personnel who could afford topay for water. This had strong implications forthe selection of the villages in the initial stage.

4 Inference drawn from the interviews held withvillagers.

5 Refers to the cost involved in installation ofwater pumps in the houses.

6 Following the reversals in the implementationof Swajaldhara, the Government of Indiarevised the rural drinking water guidelines tothe National Rural Drinking WaterProgramme. The document recognises water asa basic need and downplays the idea of chargingfor water see www.indiawaterportal.org/sites/indiawaterportal.org/ files/National%20Rural%20Drinking%20Water%20Programme_MoRD_2010.pdf).

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swajaldhara: ‘reversed’ realities in rural water supply in india

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