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Public Water Works – FACT

Dr V Suresh

Dr V Suresh is a consultant in change management and human rights lawyer. He recently spoke at WDM’s Whose Rules Rule conference in London and writes here of his involvement in a project to transform the public water utility in Tamil Nadu, India.

"(The) water crisis is largely of our own making. It has resulted not from the natural limitations of the water supply or lack of financing... but rather from profound failures in water governance"

United Nations Development Program

Water is a community resource, to be tended carefully for use by human beings and other living things on the planet – for millennia this has been the world view.

But in the last decade there has been a rapid spread of a different view, which celebrates the private sector as the new ‘water saviours’ who alone can solve the problems of water supply through investment and technology.

Despite the many examples of failed water privatizations, we still hear the same jaded mantra: increase investments, more technology, downsize public utilities and bring in the private sector.

But I have been involved in a different approach – making public utilities work more effectively...

India's water crisis

In India between 1974 and 2002, rural access to safe drinking water rose from 18% to 95% of the population.

This was achieved through huge government investment and technological intervention especially to tap ground water. Yet today in many states, including my own state of Tamil Nadu, there is still a water crisis.

The strain on ground water aquifers caused by the technological solutions was so high and occurred at such speed that there was no way the water table could recharge during monsoons.

Given this water crisis, the publicly run Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board (TWAD), responsible for supplying water to over 30 million citizens of the state, decided the only way forward was to launch an ambitious process of personal change and institutional transformation.

Bringing about change

The project we launched has focused on changing attitudes regarding water use, both within the community and the engineers serving them and looking at ways of extending water supplies without increasing investment.

Instead of spending more money on expensive technological fixes, work has focused on reviving traditional water sources like tanks, village ponds and wells whilst empowering the local community to play a more active role in managing their own water supply.

A conscious attempt was made to involve the community, specifically searching out the poor and disadvantaged; the dalits and women and ensuring their inclusion in water committees in each village making decisions at a community level about pricing, distribution and appropriate technology.

Communities have been encouraged to take up water recharge activities like rain water harvesting and soak pits.

Children have been encouraged to plant trees and tend them and more than 20,000 tree saplings have been planted in over 120 villages.

This, with the construction of almost 32 check dams has led to the water table in one village alone rising up by 400 feet.

More connections for less investment

Many of these initiatives have been undertaken voluntarily by the communities and as a result, the average cost of water supply has been reduced by 65% meaning the possibility of making an extra 400,000 new connections every year from the same original budget.

Just by these simple solutions and community involvement, more people can be reached with less investment!

The success of the Tamil Nadu water board’s project has been so great that now 10 other Indian states have asked for our help to transform their public utilities.

This model could be repeated throughout the developing world if only we had the resources and the political backing to follow it through. Whilst western governments continue to impose privatization through institutions like the World Bank and IMF, the message that public utilities can and do work will be lost.

– from WDM’s leaflet, Public Water Works.

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