Context: The new government has resolved to work on providing tap water to all
households in next five years, its important to look at the last campaign which
govt. ran for last five years. Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) campaign achieved reasonable success in very short span of time driving many different communities and many different levels of bureaucracy to achieve which is not only unprecedented by all accounts but also built a foundation which can unleash India becoming much cleaner country in years to come. It has also been world experiment of sorts for the world how sanitation can be prioritized.
What worked for the campaign: Practitioners of behaviour change has been
talking about "self efficacy" being the salient lever for adoption & sustenance of any new behaviour. The behaviour, which requires large scale
environmental modification even requires highest self efficacy believe in the
system itself. Swachh Bharat Mission has been one such experiment in the
history of large scale programmes. It has created space for provisioning of information, tools, and skills for administration and households to implement the programme, promoted healthy behaviour at community level with appropriate incentives built in both financial as well as social approvals, promoted role models through its various mass media initiatives.
Highest political leader believed it could deliver. It has created ecosystem at the highest level to make sure system is constantly reminded of the objective. District Magistrate
believed it could be delivered and most importantly households believed it could
change the behaviour. After long long time to my readings since the National Literacy Mission (TLM), for the first time ever administration reached out to the community and enroll their participation, organised them, harnessed their goodwill to achieve extraordinary. Communities got together to stop
something which was essentially a bad practice.
There are last mile challenges and that's going to remain but as the buzz around
govt. is cognizant and believe it could deliver which again is further
experiment of self efficacy. They are planning for SBM 2.0 and will stay invested.
Why water can be delivered and why challenges are far bigger.
Since system has tested and gained the confidence that it could deliver, it can
take a confident stride on water.
Water crisis is bringing community closer to being amenable to govt.
initiatives. If govt. can come closer to working out mix of surface & under
ground water based projects there are reasonable chance of success.
Panchayati Raj system is romanced & have been wrongly assumed it could
deliver on water despite dismal performance of urban local bodies which has fewer
resources or for that matter the highest legislature sans large number of
bureaucrats and specialist working around. If we can provide the similar level
of support system to panchayats it will work.
Sanitation has very interesting individual incentives built into it. All
households were eligible for some kind of incentive. Therefore,construction of toilet was not that tough, usages still remains a challenge. Jal Jeevan Mission may not bring
the similar incentives to every households.
Second, provisioning of water has
been pretty much pvt. enterprise as urban or rural housing. Individuals have been mostly building houses for generations in rural areas. Majority of urban houses are built by individual households themselves. The private companies/developers still caters to fraction of urban population. Government's role is limited to home loans provisioning. Rural housing has never had this provisioning as well.
Water supply system doesn't bring any direct incentives to the households and in this context asking for user charges are going to be even tougher as there is alternative
available which is one time investment & have better individual control for areas which still don't are not yet severely affected. It will also be difficult for the households to completely stop using their own
handpumps manual or motor operated.
Also there are likely to be multiple departments working around water and that
will make it even more difficult.
