Abstract
In Tamil Nadu state, India, it is the responsibility of the state government to provide drinking water to every household. This is carried out through the lowest elected government at the village level. Of late, the government puts into practice concepts like Demand Driven Approach, which demands the community contribute financially for any social infrastructure to be created, including drinking water supply. This approach seems to give financial matters the overriding priority blinding all the other realities such as actual requirement as per technical standards, and responsibilities of Operation and Maintenance etc. That means being able to contribute financially puts the local community in a position to get water supply infrastructure even excessive of the technical norms. This results in excessive draft of ground water resulting in wastage of fresh water. Especially in a piped water supply system, the water pumped from the ground whether they are used or wasted has an economic value – as this is a service provided using electric power. It is found through an empirical study that the community is insensitive to the cost of water wasted. This study conducted in 17 villages found that all the 17 Village Panchayats (village administrative units) put together, on an average 35 per cent of the water pumped is either excessively used or wasted. It means merely by being judicious in the use of water, each Panchayat has the potential of saving approximately one-third of the expenses incurred on water service delivery. The research paper elaborates this point.
Highlights
The physical infrastructure of a water supply system that enables the access, availability, and adequacy of water to the user community determine the technical capacity of the water supply system
BOX – 1.2 Rural Water Supply Tamil Nadu – Design Criteria The government norm for rural water supply in Tamil Nadu is that the House Service Connection (HSC) holders should get 55 lpcd, and Public Fountain (PF) users should get 40 lpcd water
Two things need to be borne in mind here. One is that this refers to PF and HP users only and the HSC holders have access to water supply facility at their yard itself, and the other is that the statement made about the distance from where water is collected holds good for the Scheduled Caste community who are usually inhabitants of isolated settlements from the main village, often addressed as: ‘SC Colonies’
Summary
The physical infrastructure of a water supply system that enables the access, availability, and adequacy of water to the user community determine the technical capacity of the water supply system. In a community-managed water supply system, technical management of the system depends on proper operation and maintenance of the physical infrastructure in order to ensure uninterrupted distribution of safe water in adequate quantity. Technical management partly depends on technical capacity and partly depends on human capacity to manage the technical installations This is often referred to as system efficiency. In other words, comparing what the user community takes delivery of against the standard water supply norms is one dependable measure of performance
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