Centre for uniform water board

The Centre, in the coming days, will ask all the states to have a uniform water board for the entire jurisdiction.

Despite water being a State subject under the Constitution, the move by the Ministry of Urban Development (MUD) is to ensure that there isn’t a huge disparity between policies governing people in the urban areas and those residing in rural areas.

Speaking at the Bangalore World Water Summit 2012, Secretary to the Ministry Dr Sudhir Krishna said a huge disparity exists in terms of supplying water to urban areas and rural areas.

“Moreover, policies that can have a strong impact in the urban areas fail to provide any solution to water crisis in the rural areas. Having a uniform water board will help resolve water woes in the country,” he said.

Delivering the keynote address at the inauguration, Sudhir Krishna said the MUD has already devised mechanisms of grading each state for its service rendering capacities. This has highlighted that a lot needs to be done to ensure 100 per cent water supply in the nation.

As per the status report on service delivery in water supply and sanitation sector, as on March 31 2011, the average per capita supply is 69 LPCD (litres per capita per day) as opposed to the ideal figure of 135 LPCD envisaged by the ministry.

The recovery of Operation and Maintenance charges is barely 32 per cent as against 100 per cent recovery which is imperative to have financial sustainability. With regard to sanitation, the coverage of sewerage network services and household coverage of solid waste management services is 12 per cent and 35 per cent as against a target of 100 per cent, he added.

Dismal picture

In Karnataka, the performance and rating given by the Ministry of Urban Development has been dismal.

Languishing in sixth place, the State has shown that only 67 per cent coverage of piped water supply connection, zero in terms of metering water connections, 25 per cent in cost recovery and 23.5 per cent of networked sewerage services, all well below the average figures across the country. The only silver lining has been in terms of water supply connection which is shown at 93 LPCD per capita as compared to the 69 LPCD per capita, the national average, said Sudhir Krishna.

At the plenary session, President of International Water Association (IWA), Dr Glenn T Daigger said the situation proved ideal for companies to do business in water supply by taking advantage of the climate change which has been having a detrimental effect on the way we live.

“Not far from now, we will be ‘manufacturing’ water instead of ‘collecting’ it,” he said.
Meanwhile, Prof K E Seetharam, visiting professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy said the nation appears to have been lagging behind in public policy. He said that the country needs to ensure that the future is not ‘mortgaged’ by not protecting the natural resource of water.

“In my opinion, the public-private-partnership model does not augur well for the water sector in the nation,” he said.