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WATER Communitize, not commodify

#5, Ali Askar Road, Bangalore 560 052 Phone: 4018 4018 (30 lines) www.ecoatf.org

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Since, we’re essentially working in India, all our calculations are based on the Indian Rupee. To put matters in perspective, Rs 54 (approximately) makes 1 Euro. Or 1 USD is equal to about Rs 45.

INDIA

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The Challenge is deep . . .

We are a country of 1100 million. Nearly 700 million of them live in rural India and generate under 25 per cent of the coun-try’s annual income [or gdp]. The rest 30 per cent of our people live in towns and urban agglomerations [uas] and generate the rest of the gdp growth. We are galloping at 8 p.c. annual growth, which makes India the fastest growing economy in the world, only after China.

There are over 4100 such uas and towns across the country. We are about 6.5 times the size of France. France supports 60 million people–just under 5 p.c. of India’s population.

The challenge is deep, formidable.

There is not enough water; there is irregular supply; pipelines are ageing; and administrative legacies are hard to change, even more so to combat.

Water systems are non–functioning or inadequate. Leakages average over 40 p.c. in nearly all the towns. Energy bills are almost always in huge arrears, or are written off by politically savvy state governments.

People don’t pay, or pay so little that water corporations are

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eternally in debt, with morale that is non–existent among staff and officers of such agencies.

Sanitation is inadequate, woefully so. Water demand is con-stantly on the rise.

The environment is polluted. Water sources are polluted, too.

Water sources are seasonal. The Indian monsoon that is unique to the world ensures we receive all our rainfall in one per cent of the entire time in a year – or in less than 90 hours of the 8,000 plus hours in a year.

The challenge is further compounded: Public taps, Illegal connections, Missing taps….

No technical skills. Inadequate funds for o&m, thanks to bad management.

Leaking overhead tanks. Inadequate toilets. Low awareness of hygiene.

High electricity bills. Communal conflicts and caste differ-ences that ensure inequitable supply systems.

Tyranny of governance with undue attention given to influen-tial users or officials.

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Water quality problems. Depleted groundwater.

No community participation, virtually, more out of a sense of resignation than lack of willingness.

Revenue collections have been a shambles for want of trac-tion in performance among o&m staff of utility corporations.

Lack of management. Inadequate local institutions.

Weak leadership. Inconsistent policies. Politics.

Low education level. Poverty Gender inequality. Traditions. Attitudes.…

Governance, the India way

Governance in India is a challenge. Be it in areas of utilities infrastructure or health and education, we have an excellent set of Policies and Procedures. But we have simply no managerial skills. A culture of ownership of tasks and projects has never been part of governance in India.

The people, in every suburb and residential colony of every town, are willing to own up responsibilities, provided the gov-ernment agency will let them.

At the Alt.Tech Foundation, we don’t believe we are an ngo.

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We are, in reality, an extra-governmental organisation and so carry an unlikely acronym–ego! Our programs are intended to benefit towns or parts of towns [as in Dehradun, six hours to the northeast of New Delhi—a town that hosts 65,000 house-holds and 530,000 people] … parts of towns that are in the lower or middle income segments, because it is clearly in these city-pockets that fcr [or full cost recovery] can be achieved on both capital costs and o&m without the aggression of a rich man wielding power or influence [e.g. slum settlements, low–and middle–income housing segments of the order of 2000 and more households]. It has been proved the world over that the poor pay more diligently than the richer segments.

Over years, we have learnt to work on not merely water supply. To us, this is more to do with Environment health and hygiene. So the effort is three–pronged—Efficient Water Sup-ply [ews], Waste Water Treatment systems [that demand no maintenance] and Solid Waste Management.

Being part of a larger group which is the largest sbe enter-prise in India today [visit www.ecobcil.com to know more], the least of the challenges is the engineering of technicals/finan-cials for a residential pocket or a city suburb on such water efficiencies. The more daunting task is the social engineering

that is needed to secure consent from a spectrum of stake–holders. Several sub–sets of communities are identified and communities are spoken to through the municipal wards, corpo-rators, mlas, the Government, the water corporations or the phe departments, and such others.

This is the future

These are new initiatives, unparalleled in the world and not just in India.

At atf, we are working vitally in these areas:

a) Engineering social change with the consent of the gov-ernment and the community; and

b) Enabling technology and financial sustainability and ensuring that the capital borrowings is serviced fully.

This per capita life-time investment that is needed to fund the capital costs are secured from citizens on equitable pricing mechanisms and on repayment platforms that recognize afford-ability of the user.

While we will take responsibility for the financial liability, the entire pricing mechanism and recovery will be constructed, with our professional inputs, by Water Improvement Committees

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[we call them Jal Sudhaar Samitis, or, loosely translated, water improvement committees, or wics]. Because they are from within the community, the task of recovery is better facilitated and there is greater acceptance among their own people.

The Business Model and Derisking Strategies

A] On Water

The government-owned Water Utility is persuaded by wic’s to be a bulk water supplier. The wic owns only water distribution. Source and Storage infrastructure and the economics thereof, continue to be in the hands of the Govt’s Water Utility. The offer made by the wic to the bulk water supplier government agency will be that it will de-risk the government agency of the following:

i) Non-payment by users;

ii) Unauthorized use by water consumers; and

iii) Leakages in distribution.

These elements account for upward of 60 per cent in most Indian towns and agglomerations. The figures are worse in some towns.

The wic negotiates a bulk water rate with the govt–owned

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Water Utility in a manner that recognizes these risks.

So, what’s the catch?

How is this different from the ‘privatizing of water’ that is invit-ing so much odium across India, and indeed all countries in the South?

Critically, atf will, in every case, exit and transfer the ownership of distribution to the community once we have enabled them, and assured ourselves mutually that they have sustainable manage-ment systems and capability. Building entrepreneurship skills and leadership initiatives is surely therefore part of our agenda in every such ‘project’. Building sensitivity among children with catch-’em-young strategies is also integral to these approaches. This is hugely rewarding in the long term. While in the shorter term of 3 to 5 years, we seek to educate and sensitize the wom-enfolk who suffer the brunt of poor and unhealthy water supply.

If you track the project sequence, you can see therefore that the revenue model for o&m [which will be handed over to the cag after the fcr on capital cost is achieved under our direct respon-sibility, and we have, importantly, proven to the community—over six months or a year of capital installations—the efficacy of the upscaled distribution system and the o&m feasibility will

work completely in the hands of the community. In any case, remember, the timeframe for over 80 per cent of the fcr capital cost realization will be as much as a year plus at the minimum, and so the presence of our professionals in a project’s opera-tions is assured for the o&m enablement without any additional cost for us.

B] On wwt:

Typically it costs Rs. 3 to 8 per Sft of households, with a criti-cal mass of 200 households. We assume household sizes to be between 500-800 Sft in these slums / low income / middle income groups. This again is modeled on the same lines of Full Cost Recovery [fcr] on capital cost. The fcr for o&m does not pose a serious challenge, since most of these systems are zero–maintenance [not even low-maintenance]. There are passive systems with baffles and settling & sedimenting tanks; there are active systems that are electro mechanical based, but are usually avoided since these latter systems involve higher maintenance skills and energy use.

Polluter Pays

At the Alt.Tech Foundation, we have been known for such work for over ten years, across many towns in India.

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The campaign centrally revolves around how the polluter has to pay. Campaigns that touch their hearts have worked: ‘Stop polluting Mother Ganga or Mother Cauvery’ in Hindi or whatever be the local language, with women and youth groups from their own community pitching the campaign. Our projects in Rishikesh and in Madikeri, a hill town (5000 households, 32000 population) in Karnataka’s Coorg district have shown us there will be acceptance for such an option, if deliverables are proven.

We have completed such three-pronged programs in two such towns, Cherembane and Pollibetta, small hill towns in Co-org, where we found funds for it from our resources of the com-munity itself–ranging from Rs. 400,000 to 800,000 per town, which averaged at no more than Rs 2,000 per household, with payments residents could make spread over 6 to 18 months.

C] On swm:

This aspect of infrastructure is low on capital cost, but very high on o&m. Households are willing to pay Rs. 20-30 a family per month. The system of swm is steadily coming into vogue in many cities. Such local committees are beginning to be adept at swm administration. People are willing to pay the cost. The

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time of recovery of the capital costs from households, again, ranges from 06 to 18 months.

The Keystones

To ensure success in these projects that interface heterog-enous stakeholders, we have adopted some key principles of management, honed and sharpened over years with experi-ence. To any development sector practitioner anywhere in the world, these may serve as good guidelines for achieving success.

To serve the Design function level, these four touchstones have served us well.

The Four E’s -

Economic efficiency

Ecological compatibility

Equity

Endogeneity

To serve organising – managing – executing, we have used an effective template in the following:

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C A F E E -

Cost Aesthetics Function Execution ease Environment Factor

For all water management plans in urban planning tasks, and in setting out goals and tasks, and review mechanisms, we have gone by four broad divisions to address the challenge of urban water supply.

Source – Storage – Distribution – Disposal. We have sought to ensure that S and S are owned and managed by the Govt Water Utility since water is not privatized in India. D and D are aspects of infrastructure that are steered away from the hands of the government, and assigned to the community with ownership that they take on managing the infrastructure.

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