Drinking water quality in rural India: Issues

Drinking water quality in rural India: Issues

(Source: WaterAid, www.wateraid.org)

Rural India has more than 700 million people residing in about 1.42 million habitations spread over 15 diverse ecological regions. Meeting the drinking water needs of such a large population can be a daunting task. The non-uniformity in level of awareness, socio-economic development, education, poverty, practices and rituals and water availability add to the complexity of the task. Despite an estimated total of Rs. 1,105 billion spent on providing safe drinking water since the First Five Year Plan was launched in 1951, lack of safe and secure drinking water continues to be a major hurdle and a national economic burden.

 Around 37.7 million Indians are affected by waterborne diseases annually, 1.5 million children are estimated to die of diarrhoea alone and 73 million working days are lost due to waterborne disease each year. The resulting economic burden is estimated at $600 million a year.

While ‘traditional diseases’ such as diarrhoea continue to take a heavy toll, 66 million Indians are at risk due to excess fluoride and 10 million due to excess arsenic in groundwater. In all, 1,95,813 habitations in the country are affected by poor water quality. It is clear that the large investments have not yielded comparable improvements in health and other socio-economic indicators.

Water Resources and Utilisation Water Resources and Utilisation

  • India has 16 per cent of the world’s population and four per cent of its fresh water resources.
  • Estimates indicate that surface and ground water availability is around 1,869 billion cubic metres (BCM). Of this, 40 per cent is not available for use due to geological and topographical reasons.
  • Around 4,000 BCM of fresh water is available due to precipitation in the form of rain and snow, most of which returns to the seas via rivers.
  • Ninety two per cent groundwater extracted is used in the agricultural sector, five and three per cent respectively for industrial and domestic sector.
  • Eight nine per cent of surface water use is for agricultural sector and two per cent and nine per cent respectively are used by the industrial and domestic sector.

While on the one hand the pressures of development are changing the distribution of water in the country, access to adequate water has been cited as the primary factor responsible for limiting development. The average availability of water remains more or less fixed according to the natural hydrological cycle but the per capita availability reduces steadily due to an increasing population.

 

  • In 1955, the per capita availability was 5,300 cubic metres (cu.m) per person per year, which came down to 2,200 cu. m in 1996.
  • It is expected that by around 2020, India will be a ‘water stressed' state with per capita availability declining to 1600 cu m/person/year.4 A country is said to be water stressed when the per capita availability of water drops below 1700 cu. m/person/year.

Rural Water Supply Rural Water Supply

 The provision of clean drinking water has been given priority in the Constitution of India, with Article 47 conferring the duty of providing clean drinking water and improving public health standards to the State. Rural water supply (RWS) programmes in India can be divided into several distinct phases

Early Inde Early Independence pendence (1947- ---1969)

1949: The Environment Hygiene Committee (1949) recommends the provision of safe water supply to cover 90 per cent of India’s population in a timeframe of 40 years.

1950: The Constitution of India confers ownership of all water resources to the government, specifying it as a state subject, giving citizens the right to potable water.

1969: National Rural Drinking Water Supply programme launched with technical support from UNICEF and Rs.254.90 crore is spent during this phase, with 1.2 million bore wells being dug and 17,000 piped water supply schemes being provided.

Transition from technology to policy (1969---1989)

 1972-73: Introduction of the Accelerated Rural Water Supply Programme (ARWSP) by the Government of India to assist states and union territories to accelerate the pace of coverage of drinking water supply.

1981: India as a party to the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade (1981- 1990) declaration sets up a national level Apex Committee to define policies to achieve the goal of providing safe water to all villages.

1986: The National Drinking Water Mission (NDWM) is formed.

1987: Drafting of the first National Water Policy by the Ministry of Water Resources.

Restructuring phase (1989---1999)

1991: NDWM is renamed the Rajiv Gandhi National Drinking Water Mission (RGNDWM).

1994: The 73rd Constitutional Amendment assigns panchayati raj institutions (PRIs) the responsibility of providing drinking water.

1999: For ensuring sustainability of the systems, steps are initiated to institutionalize community participation in the implementation of rural drinking water supply schemes through sector reform. Sector reform ushers in a paradigm shift from the ‘Government-oriented supply-driven approach’ to the ‘People-oriented demand-responsive approach’. The role of the government is envisaged to change from that of service provider to facilitator. Under reform, 90 per cent of the infrastructure is funded by the government, with the community contributing 10 per cent of the remaining infrastructure cost and 100 per cent of operation and maintenance costs. Sector reforms projects were introduced in 67 districts across the country on pilot basis.

1999: Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) as a part of reform principles initiated in 1999 to ensure sanitation facilities in rural areas with broader goal to eradicate the practice of open defecation. As part of the programme, a nominal subsidy in the form of incentive is given to rural poor households for construction of toilets. TSC gives strong emphasis on Information, Education and Communication, Capacity Building and Hygiene Education for effective behaviour change with involvement of PRIs, CBOs, and NGOs

Consolidation phase (2000 onwards)

2002: Nationwide scaling up of sector reform in the form of Swajaldhara.

2002: The National Water Policy is revised, accordin 2002: g priority to serving villages that did not have adequate sources of safe water and to improve the level of service for villages classified as only partially covered.

2002: India commits to the Millennium Development Goals to halve by 2015, from 1990 levels, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.

2004: All drinking water programmes are brought under the umbrella of the RGNDWM.

2005: The Government of India launches the Bharat Nirman Programme for overall development of rural areas by strengthening housing, roads, electricity, telephone, irrigation and drinking water infrastructure. The target is to provide drinking water to 55,069 uncovered habitations; those affected by poor water quality and slipped back habitations based on 2003 survey, within five years.

2007: Pattern of funding under the Swajaldhar Scheme changes from the previous 90:10 central-community share to 50:50 centre-state shares. Community contribution is now optional.

 

The approach paper for the 11th Five Year Plan calls for a comprehensive approach which encompasses individual health care, public health, sanitation, clean drinking water, access to food and knowledge about hygiene and feeding practice. It also states the need to upscale more schemes related to community management of water reducing the maintenance burden and responsibility of the state. It is envisaged to provide clean drinking water for all by 2009 and ensure that there are no slip-backs by the end of the 11th Plan

Coverage and investment

The 2001 Census reported that 68.2 per cent of households in India have access to safe drinking water. According to latest estimates, 94 per cent of the rural population and 91 per cent of the people living in urban areas have access to safe drinking water. Drinking Water and Sanitation Status in India, WaterAid India, 2005. Data available with the Department of Drinking Water Supply shows that of the 1.42 million rural habitations in the country, 1.27 million are fully covered (FC), 0.13 million are partially covered (PC) and 15,917 are not covered (NC). However, coverage refers to installed capacity, and not average actual supply over a sustained period or the quality of water being supplied.

From the 1990s, there has been a considerable increase in rural water supply in the five year plans, with Rs.16,711 crore being the budget outlay in the Eighth plan; Rs.39,538 crore in the Ninth and Rs.42,000 crore projected for the 10th Five Year Plan.

Despite the enormous allocation made to the various ministries the expenditure has been very low. The Ministry of Water Resources incurred only 22% expenditure out of the plan outlay of Rs.3, 600 crores in the first 2 plan periods. The approved outlay for water supply (rural and urban) was Rs.44, 206.55 crore and expenditure was to the tune of 27% of the approved outlay. The Department of Drinking Water Supply (DDWS) was allocated Rs.14,200 crore for rural WATSAN & expenditure was 36% of allocated funds. The investment in the watsan sector does not commensurate with health benefits.

There is a growing need to address the twin problem of sustainability of water resource and water quality. DDWS has estimated a large gap in resources of about Rs.6,800 crores to tackle problems of rural water sustainability & water quality.

While accessing drinking water continues to be a problem, assuring that it is safe is a challenge by itself. Water quality problems are caused by pollution and over-exploitation. The rapid pace of industrialisation and greater emphasis on agricultural growth combined with financial and technological constraints and non-enforcement of laws have led to generation of large quantities of waste and pollution. The problem is sometimes aggravated due to the non-uniform distribution of rainfall. Individual practises also play an important role in determining the quality of water.

Water quality is affected by both point and non-point sources of pollution. These include sewage discharge, discharge from industries, run-off from agricultural fields and urban run-off. Water quality is also affected by floods and droughts and can also arise from lack of awareness and education among users. The need for user involvement in maintaining water quality and looking at other aspects like hygiene, environment sanitation, storage and disposal are critical elements to maintain the quality of water resources.

Bacterial contamination

Bacterial contamination of water continues to be a widespread problem across the country and is a major cause of illness and deaths with 37.7 million affected by waterborne diseases annually. The major pathogenic organisms responsible for water borne diseases in India are bacteria (E Coli, Shigella, V cholera), viruses (Hepatitis A, Polio Virus, Rota Virus) and parasites (E histolytica, Giardia, Hook worm).

The Central Pollution Control Board monitoring results obtained during 2005 indicate that organic pollution continues to be predominant in aquatic resources. Organic pollution measured in terms of bio-chemical oxygen demand (BOD) and coliform count gives an indication of the extent of water quality degradation in different parts of the country. It was observed that nearly 66 per cent of the samples had BOD values less than acceptable limits while 44 per cent of the samples indicated the presence of coliform while according to the BIS there should be no coliform in drinking water samples.

Contamination due to over-exploitation

In the 1980s and 1990s, groundwater tables buckled under increased extraction as water tables started to decline and bore wells ran dry. What was more disturbing was that by then, 80 per cent of drinking water sources were groundwater-dependent. As a result, habitations and villages that were ‘covered’ with a safe water supply by the government started ‘slipping back’.

Report, CGWB, 2002- 2003

Water quality also started becoming a problem. This time, the culprit was not microbial contamination. Drinking water problems began to emerge in places where this was previously unheard of, such as in West Bengal. The problems were chemical in nature, best pointed out in the case of West Bengal. Endowed with 1,650 mm of rainfall and several rivers, West Bengal was earlier using surface water and shallow ponds as drinking water sources. As the state shifted to groundwater sources, reports of arsenic contamination began coming in from the right bank of the Ganga. Similarly, over-extraction of groundwater has also resulted in increase in fluoride concentration in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

Other contaminants include excess iron, nitrates and brackishness, the latter especially in coastal areas. Increase in brackishness in coastal areas has been the result of groundwater extraction through deep tube-wells for drinking and irrigation purposes, leading to salinity ingress where seawater seeps in. The occurrence of inland salinity is due to over-extraction of groundwater and less recharge of aquifers.

Thus, the problems that emerged from groundwater use were not limited to depleting sources, but also contaminants that did not need to be dealt with before. As of now, the scenario is fearful and alarming. There are a variety of problems that relate to quantity as well as quality. Eighty per cent of our drinking water needs are met by groundwater, which is depleting at an alarming rate, compounded with large scale contamination.

It is estimated that about 66 million people in 20 states are at risk due to excess fluoride11 and around 10 million people are at risk due to excess arsenic in ground water.

Effluents and industrial waste

Another major cause for concern is the pollution of ground and surface water from increased fertiliser and pesticide use in agriculture and from industrial sources. The consumption of fertilisers shot up from 7.7 million tonnes in 1984-85 to 13.9 million tonnes in 1994-95 and that of pesticides from 24,305 tonnes in 1974 to 85,030 tonnes in 1994-95.

The rise in the usage of such compounds has degraded the quality of surface water resources by causing nitrate contamination. The World Bank has estimated that the total cost of environmental damage in India amounts to US$9.7 billion annually, or 4.5 per cent of the gross domestic product. Of this, 59 per cent results from the health impacts of water pollution.

A 1995, a survey undertaken by the Central Pollution Control Board identified 22 sites in 16 states as critical for groundwater pollution due to industrial effluents. There have been instances of heavy metals like lead, cadmium, zinc and mercury being reported in groundwater in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Delhi and Haryana.

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