Transcript An Exploratory Study of the Administration of the Urban

Decentralised Governance
for Rural Development in
Water and Sanitation:
A Study of Gram
Panchayats in S.A.S.
Nagar District, Punjab
Research Paper
Discusses the delivery of water supply and
sanitation through decentralised institutions in
SAS Nagar District. It attempts to find out the
problems faced by the Gram Panchayats in
performing these functions.
Section I discusses the concept of decentralised
governance .
Section II describes the condition of water and
sanitation services in Punjab with special
reference to the two case studies.
Section III summarizes the findings and gives
some suggestions.
Research Methodology
For primary data: Two Gram Panchayats from
Dera Bassi Tehsil has been randomly selected.
The research paper is based on a household level
survey in two villages including 100 respondents
among which 8 were elected member and 92
were households.
The secondary data: books, academic journals,
newspapers, official documents and publications
of the concerned authorities have been
accessed, greatly supported by the internet.
Decentralised Governance
 Decision making power to the local people for
management of their own affairs.
 Transfer of authority – political, legal, or administrative
from a higher level of government to lower level.
 Prime mechanism through which democracy becomes truly
representative and responsive.
 Aims to foster better and faster communication,
involvement and commitment of people in development,
mobilisation of support and utilisation of resources in an
efficient manner for national development, reduction in
delay in decision-making, greater equity in allocation of
resources and investments as well as reduction in apathy
of administration towards citizens.
Water and Sanitation Condition
 43.5 percent are using tap of which 32 percent of water is
treated and 11.6 percent remains untreated.
 42 percent use handpump/tube well, 11 percent use well of
which only 1.6 percent of well are covered and rest are
uncovered.
 3 percent use other source for drinking water. In rural
areas, 51.9 percent of the households depend upon hand
pump/tube well followed by 31.8 percent who has tap
water.
 47 percent of the households have toilet facility within
premises with 36 percent households have water closet and
9 percent households have pit toilets.
 The rest of the households defecate in open.
Water and Sanitation Situation
in Punjab
Plenty of water both ground water and surface is
available.
Most of the rural population depends upon ground
water without any treatment to satisfy its needs
of drinking water.
Tube wells are major source .
Case Studies
Basma Village
Basma Colony Village
Basma Village
 Access to water supply and sanitation presents a far from
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comfortable picture.
Water supply pipes have been installed & 98 % households have
water connection.
91 % told actually water doesnt flows out of the pipes for more than
a couple of hours each day & nor does the water that come is safe.
65 % of the villagers have handpump.
35 % have submersible pump in their houses.
Water table is becoming deeper handpumps also stop working in
summers or just give one or two buckets of water.
Additionally, it was found that ground water is polluting due to use of
pesticides in the fields.
 Household survey revealed that access to safe drinking water is an
enormous challenge.
 In contrast, 50 % have toilets & rest defecate in
open.
 Additionally, in order to fill the gap between demand
and supply of water, it is necessary to augment the
supply by installing more tubewells.
 People are not used to these and don’t feel like using
toilets.
 Converted these toilets into storage godowns or have
demolished them and used its bricks for some other
households’ purpose.
 Toilets made in the houses are for women.
 Sarpanch is unable to do anything as the top level
officials at the district level do not give importance
to the issues which are raised by the gram
panchayats.
Basma Colony Village
 All the households have access to water and toilet in
their houses.
 90 % revealed that though pipe lines are placed, water
supply is negligible in summer.
 Every house has its own handpump and 10 % of the
household have submersible pump.
 Sarpanch put forth that undisrupted water supply is a
distant dream for the villagers.
 Fatehgarh Sahib district has taken step forward by
empowering the panchayats of two villages (Chunni Khurd
and Chunni Kalan) to operate and maintain the rural
drinking water supply system. He suggests that this
should be done in all districts.
 Majority
of people believe that sanitation
programmes and projects have not given desired
results because of lack of involvement and
commitment from both communities and external
agencies–government or non-government.
 There had been lapses in technology, planning,
implementation, supervision, support, and above all,
accountability.
 Common but predominant message emerged from the
household survey across the belt was that their
political leaderships must take a collective resolve in
the region to promote right to sanitation and assure
dignified lives to people by providing them and their
children with a disease-free and healthy environment.
Conclusion
 Huge gap between demand and supply of services, the
Gram Panchayat was unable to cope with the pressure and
situation is alarming.
 Drinking water and toilet imbalance is a huge issue that
has to be addressed. With water getting scarcer this
imbalance will further grow. If the country wants
sanitation coverage to catch up with that of water, these
two have to be linked and not separated.
 Sarpanchs were aware of the exact situation of their
village, they were unable to do anything as they have
little autonomy.
 Villages shows improvement in other infrastructure like
streets, roads, maintenance of dharamshala and
crimination ground.
 Decentralised institution has performed well in other
activities, it can also exceed in water and sanitation if
given a change.
Key Issues & Way Forward
Groundwater Extraction
Time-bound Implementation Plan
Autonomy to PRIs
Capacity Building
Coordination and Accountability Mechanisms
Documentation
Behavioural Change
Social Audit
Addressing Local Issues
Participatory Culture
Community Self Financing
Thank You