24 x 7 in Rural Water Supply Is a Reality – Punjab Experience

8. 24 x 7 in Rural Water Supply Is a Reality • – Punjab Experience DEPT. OF WATER SUPPLY & SANITATION, PUNJAB Presentation by S. S. Pandher Executive Engineer

9. What 24X7 Water Supply Means? • Safe & adequate water readily and conveniently accessible by users at all times and in all situations.

10. Why 24 x 7 was felt necessary? Intermittent supply gives rise to the following deficiencies in the service and its management: • Serious risks to health, resulting from ingress of contaminated groundwater to the distribution system; • Inability to practice efficient supply management; • Inability to practice effective demand management; • Operational inadequacies which unduly weaken the physical infrastructure; • Customer dissatisfaction with an unreliable service of poor quality. • Customer inconvenience, in many cases to an unacceptable degree, by limiting personal water usage to below the level required for the practice of safe hygiene and translating into an unwillingness to pay for a sub-standard service.

11. What is the Supply Situation in the Rest of the World? • A continuous, 24-7 supply is the norm in the rest of the world. All developed countries have continuous water supply systems. In the United Kingdom, for example, if the water supply to an area must be interrupted, for whatever reason, the water company must pay a monetary penalty to every customer in that area for every day that the supply is interrupted for a given number of hours.

12. Can We Afford to Convert to 24 X 7 Supply? • The question of affordability can be viewed from two perspectives from the perspective of the customer of the water service; and from the perspective of the overall economics of the entire system and the provision of a cost-effective service. • Punjab experience shows that intermittent water supply can be converted to 24 X 7 water supply with minor additions.

13. Steps Followed for Achieving 24 X 7 Water Supply • Making aware and sensitizing the people of the village about the scheme. • Generating Participatory Rural Appraisal. • Forming Gram Panchayat Water Supply Committee. • Providing Capacity Building Training. • Training on project concepts, • Role of GPWSC/GP/Opinion Leaders during pre- planning & planning phase . • Training on quality aspects in implementation phase. • Training for operation and management aspects to the Pump Operators/Technicians, officials handling the Accounts and Billing (post implementation phase). • Effective Monitoring & Training Is Essential

14. Why metering was felt necessary? • Meters Successfully address the issue of unequal distribution of drinking water, • Misuse of water by advantage groups, • Constant complaints about inadequate supply of drinking water. • Non-payment of water tariff due to poor services and unbalanced budget leading to huge pending electricity bills and diversion of development funds towards maintenance of schemes by the GPs. • Meters save water and energy cost. • Eventually, every household gets water supply and pays according to what it uses. • The meters also trigger the professionalization of the GPWSCs . • GPWSCs begin to hire and manage technical staff,

15. Why metering was felt necessary? • Fix and adjust tariff to fully cover increasing operation and maintenance (O&M) cost. • Charge on volumetric basis, and develop a computerized billing and collection system. In fact, GPWSCs manage their water supply systems on a utility management model. • The introduction of meters helps the GPs, with support from GPWSCs, to fulfill the requirements of Government along with delivering a much better service. • GPWSCs managing piped water systems with metered connections are able to meet O&M expenditure in a better way. • Enhance transparency of the working of GPWSC making them better equipped to report to GP authorities and the Gram Sabha.

16. How much it cost to install 24 X 7 Water Supply ? Does it cost more ? Or less ? Than an intermittent supply? • Intermittent supply can be converted into 24 X 7 Water supply by installing a liquid level controller in the Over Head Service Reservoir & by installing meter in each & every household of the village and by employing an effective revenue management system. It is not costly as the investment on these items can be offset by the benefits of reducing non revenue water.

17. EFFECTIVE REVENUE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IS THE BACK BONE OF 24 X 7 WATER SUPPLY • Revenue management system is an important aspect of any Water supply System to make it self sustainable. Besides fixing a tariff structure, billing and collection of revenue play an important part.

18. Revenue Management SystemTechniques adopted. • A bulk water meter of 100 mm size has been installed at the entry point of each village to measure the quantity of water supplied to the village. • 15 mm size water meters have been installed inside the houses by DWSS. In case of malfunctioning of meters, the manufacturer has to rectify it free of cost for a period of one year. • Thereafter, the GPWSC through identified mechanics shall maintain a system of meter maintenance arrangements. • Meter readings in each house is undertaken by pump operator / cashier on 25th of every month. The meter reading record is maintained in a register. • The signature of every consumer is taken on the register about the correctness of meter reading.

19. Fixation of Tariff. • The monthly tariff has been fixed by the GPWSCs by taking into account the expenditure on the following heads to make GPWSC self sufficient. • Electricity Charges for running of machinery. • Establishment Charges. • Repair of Infrastructure such as machinery, pipe lines & Civil structure. • Cost of disinfection.

20. BILLING OF WATER CHARGES. • At present the water bills are prepared by cashier but soon preparation of the bills will be outsourced to a computer agency. • DWSS has already outsourced the preparation of water bills to the “Department of Electronics and Accreditation of Computer Courses (DOEACC) , Sector 17 Chandigarh”. • GPWSC shall be persuaded to outsource the preparation of bills to DOEACC. The agency would charge Re.1 for the preparation of each water bill which will be borne by the consumers/GPWSC on trial basis.

21. COLLECTION OF WATER CHARGES. • Collection of water bills is done by the Pump operator/ Cashier. In case of any default in meter during use, an average bill of previous three months usage will be charged. • The GPWSC will supply new water meters in lieu of faulty meters. The charges for the new meter will be borne by the consumer. • If any consumer is found guilty of misusing the water, his water connection will be disconnected & reconnection charges will be met by the consumer.

22. Can 24 X 7 be achieved without Meters ? • From the experience gained by the Department it can be concluded that without metering 24 X 7 water supply status cannot be achieved.

23. 14 Villages have achieved the Status of 24 X 7 Water Supply District : Fatehgarh Sahib District : SAS Nagar • Paprala • Rasulpur • Railon Khurd • Chitmali District : Ropar

24. Sh. Suresh Kumar IAS, Worthy Principal Secretary Department of Water Supply & Sanitation, Punjab along with Sh. SrinivasaRaoPodipireddy Task Team Leader World Bank Project Visiting Water Supply Scheme (24 X 7 Water Supply) Village Singhpura, Distt. S.A.S. Nagar

26. Evaluation of Performance of 24 x7 Water Supply • Multi Village Scheme Paprala (Paprala, Rasulpur, RailonKhurd). • Single Village Scheme Chitamali. • Single Village Scheme Singhpura.

27. Who is benefitted from a 24/7 and fully metered water supply – the rich or poor, large or small users and why? Both rich and poor will benefit from a properly managed continuously pressurized (24/7) supply system. Despite the fact that many people still regard 24/7 water as a luxury for the rich, it is actually the poor who will observe the greatest improvement in their lives. While most upper income families have already invested in storage tanks, pumps and treatment systems in order to compensate for their water board’s failure to provide 24/7 service, the poor can never afford such investments.

28. CHALLENGES • Maintaining low or no NRW (Non Revenue Water). • Ensuring regularity in user fee collection. • Water conserving habits of people. • Populist policies of the successive Governments. • Meter Maintenance.

29. REPLICABILITY Keeping in view the success achieved in villages like Singhpura & Sitabgarh it is proposed to adopt this model of 24 X 7 metered water supply in at least 50 villages in this financial year. As mentioned in this presentation we have achieved already 24 X 7 in 11 villages & others are underway.

30. Conclusion • 24 X 7 water supply costs less to operate & provides high benefits.

31. Let us Move Ahead to Achieve 24 x 7 Water Supply for All Villages of Punjab.

32. GALLERY

35. Hon’ble Sukhbir Singh Badal, Deputy Chief Minister of Punjab Inaugurating the Shikayat Nivaran Kendra (SNK) in SAS Nagar.

37. Inauguration of SNK By Hon’ble Deputy Chief Minister Punjab on 16.12.2009 1800-180-2468

38. Modus operandi Stage 1: Registration and channelizing the Complaint Stage 2: Redressal of Complaint Stage 3: Closure of Complaint

39. Modus Operandi of (SNK)STAGE -1

40. Modus Operandi of (SNK) STAGE -2

41. Modus Operandi of (SNK)STAGE - 3 COMPLAINT IS CLOSED ONLY AFTER COMPLAINANT IS SATISFIED

42. Conclusion.. SNK Gives:

43. There is not assured adequate availability of water in some problematic villages as shown below: Served through canal based water supply schemes and located at the tail of the canal network (mainly in Southern District of Punjab) experiencing shortage of canal raw water during peak summer season & no demand period of crops. Served through tube-well based water supply schemes where Total Dissolved Solids are beyond 800 ppm. Where uranium has been found to be above the permissible limits in the drinking water T/wells. Where Heavy Metal has been detected in the drinking water. In order to ensure the water security, minimum for drinking & cooking requirements; alternate arrangement of qualitative water has also been made in such villages by providing Reverse Osmosis Plants on Build Own Operate & transfer basis with unique features of sustainability. Contd…. WATER SECURITY THROUGH ALTERNATIVE TECHNIQUE – RO Plants

44. A nominal rate of Rs. 0.10 per Litre is being charged from the consumers. Thus by spending nominal amount, the villagers are able to get potable water of high standards which is reliable even in peak summer season when demand for drinking water grow manifold. The executing agencies have been engaged not only to built the plants but also to operate and maintain these plants for 7 years free of cost. The agencies will also payback Rs. 451.87 Lacs. to the state Govt. as a whole in this O&M period. Thus the state in return, will earn some money from the operation and maintenance of rural water supply schemes thus provided, which is a unique experiment. Contd.. SALIENT FEATURES:

47. Ensuring Potable Water throughout the year with RO Plants • Potable water is assured throughout the year for drinking & cooking requirements, with installation of (1811) Reverse Osmosis Systems in problematic villages: • Served through canal based water supply schemes and located at the tail of the canal network (mainly in Southern District of Punjab) experiencing shortage of canal raw water during peak summer season & no demand period of crops. • (952 commissioned + 51 in progress = Total 1003 ) • Served through tube-well based water supply schemes where Total Dissolved Solids are beyond 800 ppm. • (483 commissioned + 141in progress = Total 624 ) • Where uranium has been found to be above the permissible limits in the drinking water T/wells. • (160 commissioned + 21 in progress = Total 181 ) • Where Heavy Metal has been detected in the drinking water. • (3 in progress)

48. If GOD is willing to grant, why should we restrict ourselves from wishing Thanks