From Prakash Kumar, DFID Sector Reform Programme, Patna
Posted 23 July 2010
I work with the Health sector reform programme of the Government of Bihar supported by the Department for International Development. This involves the ministries of Health, Social Development (for nutrition) and the Public Health Engineering Department (for water and sanitation). DFID has supported similar programmes in West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh. In Bihar, Water and Sanitation has been added for the first time to seek convergence and maximize the benefits from the programme. The programme is to be launched soon.
I would like to seek advice from the community members on water and sanitation components of this very important sector reform programme. The coverage of water supply and sanitation in Bihar is very low with just 25 per cent of rural households having some sanitation facilities. Apart from coverage, there are issues of consistent use of the created facilities. The Total Sanitation Programme has not addressed the needs of the poor and vulnerable adequately, and facilities in schools, health centres and anganwadis are very poor.
On the water front, the picture is even worse, with just 4.2 per cent of households having piped water connections against national average of 42 per cent. About 42 per cent of the population is not covered with safe water supply and 22 of 38 districts in the state have quality problems caused by arsenic or fluoride contamination. The number of faulty handpumps outstrips the number of replacements each year. More than 30 per cent of the state is susceptible to floods.
An encouraging development is the government has included TSC in the 5-point agenda of the Chief Minister, but the delivery mechanism needs to be strengthened immediately. Only 198 Panchayat have received the Nirmal gram award so far and there are slippages even in these.
Against this background, I would like advice from members on the lessons from similar sector reform programmes as well as general suggestions from other watsan projects in India.
- How can we strengthen the delivery of TSC to ensure ODF status? How can the private sector help in behaviour change communication?
- What sort of water quality monitoring and surveillance mechanism is needed especially for arsenic and fluoride affected areas? How can these be treated at the household level?
- How can we ensure better maintenance of handpumps?
- How can we meet the water and sanitation needs of vulnerable groups and what sort of capacity-building is needed for the state-level institutions?
These will help us in formulating the programme.
Please see attachment below for the responses.