Recent data shows that the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) has covered more than 70 percent of the habitations in terms of connecting households, and the need for understanding the field implementation issues particularly in terms of long-term sustainability of this exercise is enormous.
While the government is committed to spending a huge budget on the JJM, learnings from the previous efforts have found that more attention needs to be paid not only to provision, but also on functionality of household tap connections. Thus, emphasis needs to be on the service delivery model by the community and local bodies, rather than only on infrastructure creation. The importance of community involvement has thus been found to be a crucial factor in successful implementation and sustainability of the mission.
JJM has prepared and supplied comprehensive guidelines on project implementation, emphasising community involvement during construction and management of operations and maintenance, once it is functional.
“However, the current situation of passive willingness of the local community needs deeper understanding at this stage of implementation in order to strategise the ongoing efforts so that the extent of certification of villages can be quickly enhanced. Making the system functional and sustainable needs intensive involvement of all stakeholders such as government at all levels, academics, researchers, funding organisations, community based organisations and others to work collaboratively to ensure successful completion of the mission” informed Professor Gopal Naik, the JJM Chair Professor in his opening address.
This symposium organised by IIM Bangalore (IIM-B), appointed by the center as the JJM chair for O&M, in collaboration with Arghyam and eGovernments Foundation aimed at understanding the issues arising in implementation and actions needed to ensure sustainability based on the 4D framework, with focus on domains such as source, operational, financial and institutional sustainability.
Case studies and experiences on implementation of drinking water systems from different states were discussed to understand the key challenges involved and factors contributing to sustainability of drinking water systems in the country.
The six case studies discussed in the symposium are included below:
Mr Divyang Waghela, the head of Tata Water Mission shared insights and experiences from ethnographic research and work in behaviour change communication to encourage participation and ownership by the community in water scarce as well as water abundant villages in the country. They arrived at “Respect” as a key proposition to initiate behaviour change. Having tap water in the house is equal to getting “Samman” or “Respect”.
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Mr Pankaj Kumar, Program Integrator, AKRSP(I) shared his insights from implementing the O&M policy of the state with community participation. Digital content and tools were used for capacity building, to capture processes and in collection of user charges. Strengthening local institutions like WIMC/VWSC and adopting activities and processes for community involvement were critical to develop willingness to pay for services and ensuring effective functionality.
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Ms Sujata Tripathi, WFP shared their experiences from West Bengal. She highlighted the need to create mandates on best practices in training, creation of incentives, and validation of Village Action Plans. When scaling the direct implementation approach on replication of Single Village Scheme (SVS) and Village Action Plan (VAP) preparation, technology, support from state and districts and incentives were the key enablers of scale.
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The IIM-B team shared their experiences from Odisha. It was found that behavioural change methodology was effective in creating a demand based system and encourage ownership responsibilities and women SHGs showed considerable interest and ability in running the system.
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This presentation by IIM-B team discussed the progress of JJM in Gokarna MVS which covered six Gram Panchayats- Gokarna, Hiregutti, Bargi, Hanehalli, Nadumaskeri and Torke which are in Kumta taluk Uttar Karnataka district in Karnataka. This case presented a different model of operating and managing larger schemes.
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Mr. Krishnakumar T. Vice President, eGovernments Foundation talked about the role of mGramSeva platform in the fiscal sustainability of schemes in Punjab. It brought visibility to all stakeholders and enhanced coordination.
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The panel discussion focused on the main learnings from the case studies discussed and the group work that followed on the 4 domains of sustainability namely, source, operational, institutional and financial sustainability.
Source sustainability
Operational sustainability
Institutional sustainability
Financial sustainability
Source sustainability
Operational sustainability
Institutional sustainability