Shanti Raikwal trills excitedly, a wicked gleam in her eyes almost hidden under wrinkled skin, and waves her hands. "You come with us, ladies from the big city, and see the place from where we fetch water. The climb down is steep and long and there will be big leeches. But don't worry, I'll pull them out." We tentatively return the smile, undecided whether to give it a shot as she squeals in delight, her expectation fulfiled: "You just want to come and talk to us and write; that won't do, I'm going to be your guide and I'm going to take money from all of you." Is she serious? Of course not. The women in this village and a few neighbouring ones are as hardworking and independent as they come and don't need donations. They make knitwear, cut grass, grow vegetables and fruits and sell them to Mother Dairy. Why, they even run a small bank!
Forty litres per capita a day. Equivalent to about a couple of small buckets of water. That's the minimum basic level prescribed by the Government of India and denied to vast stretches in the country. And in UP, a state with bountiful rivers where rainfall is higher than the national average, 30 per cent of the habitation suffers from water scarcity, even though water supply schemes are fully subsidised by the state.
One reason for that is one-third of all rural water supply schemes are out of operation. Two, in the hilly regions of Kumaon and Garhwal, water run-off is very high. Some traditional sources have even dried up due to denudation and urbanisation. Meanwhile, populations of individual villages, already scattered thanks to the hilly terrain, has increased. Result: women spend three hours a day trudging to secure a bare minimum supply of water. Sanitation and health standards are poor (only 2.5 per cent of UP's population use proper toilets), poverty and income levels are stagnant.
The bane of most development work in India is that after an asset is built, there is little follow-up in operation and maintenance (O&M). Either the funds are too meagre or drained out before they reach the fields, or the bureaucrat's priority shifts.
The only answer is decentralisation. But even here, as UP government officials and the World Bank have discovered, it must be complemented by community efforts.
For instance, the state has to, to begin with, turn over all the handpumps it has built to the local bodies (panchayats), along with the funds for O&M. But what if the community itself is involved right from the asset-creation stage?
This experiment has worked wonders for Simayel, a tiny hamlet some 45 km off Bhimtal in the Kumaon hills. Even by our metro-bred standards.
The innovativeness of the Swajal (own water) Pariyojana (the $63.7-million, World-Bank-assisted UP Rural Water Supply and Environmental Sanitation Project with a term of 1996-2002) lies in the project objectives. Besides the obvious, it also wants to improve rural incomes through time-saving and earning opportunities for women and test alternatives to the current supply-driven service delivery mechanism.
The first is laudable but the second is crucial, for that determines the selection of the villages. The criteria are: need (quantity and quality of water and how much time can be saved), feasibility (adequate water sources) and demand. The villagers must want water—and also prove their commitment to the precious resource.
Under Swajal, which covers 1,250 villages in 19 districts of UP—in its hills and the Bundelkhand region—villagers have to contribute 10 per cent of the capital cost of the project and bear 100 per cent of the O&M cost! For instance, for a pipeline project in the hills, they bear 1 per cent of capital cost upfront in cash and during implementation, all labour costs for digging and refilling the trenches. For other projects like handpumps, rainwater harvesting, infiltration well with handpump, or a combination of these systems, they pay 1 per cent in cash upfront and then 9 per cent of capital cost in cash or labour. In Bundelkhand, they contribute 2 per cent upfront and 8 per cent later. For private facilities, the UP government bears the subsidy which is graded into above poverty line and below poverty line, including SC/STs.
In 98-household Simayel, the water supply and sanitation schemes were completed in two-and-a-half years and the O&M phase has started from April, with every family contributing to meet the annual cost of Rs 9,650. The capital cost of the water and sanitation schemes came to Rs 13.5 lakh. For the water and community development projects, the community's contribution came to Rs 77,357. For the entire Swajal project, the communities' contribution is expected to touch $7.6 million, or 12 per cent, double the UP government's share, with the World Bank funding the rest, says Arun Tyagi, manager of the district Swajal project management unit at Bhimtal.
How did the Swajal project benefit Simayel and other villages? For one, it led to empowerment of the community by allowing them to decide what they wanted and how, and to what lengths they were prepared to go for it. The community, represented by the 7-12 member Village Water and Sanitation Committee (VWSC), decides the health and hygiene status and fixes performance indicators and targets, by conducting periodic "healthy home" surveys. These committees must have representation from women and SC/STs—for instance, the 11-member Simayel VWSC includes four women, one of them being the treasurer, and two male SC/ST members.
The uniqueness of the project is its women's development initiatives like forming self-help groups and Swajal Saheli Samooh (friends clubs). It is the women of these villages who are the active force behind these projects. In Simayel, where the village head is Beena Raikwal, a woman, such efforts have crystallised into a micro-credit scheme operating within the community. Under the 22-member Sheetal Women's Savings Group, each member contributes Rs 10 a month and the bank's capital has already touched about Rs 14,000. A few months ago, the highest loan so far of Rs 4,000 was granted to a member for her daughter's marriage.
Thanks to the water schemes, women have two-and-a-half to three hours more on their hands. What do they do with that? Says Beena: "Teach the children, do more house work, cut grass for more money." But the most important way this time is utilised is by growing fruits and vegetables and sending truckfuls of them to the Mother Dairy fruit and vegetable retail chain in Delhi every day. They're also picked up by the Kumaon Gramin Udyog, a unit of the NGO Chirag active in the area. Chirag is the support organisation (SO) for the Swajal project in Simayel. The SOs are vital to the project for they select the technology for the project, educate the villagers and also sign the agreement.
At its headquarters in Sitla village, 2,000 metres above sea-level, Chirag's soft-spoken Yale-educated executive director Rajesh Thadani is all admiration for community development efforts steered by the local women. The rainwater harvesting tank at Beena Raikwad's homestead got technology support from Chirag, which has built 68 such tanks and nine community pipelines for Swajal. "Our activities cover 100 villages in all five hill blocks of Nainital," Thadani adds.
Post-Swajal, the average income in Simayel has gone up to Rs 1,500-2,000 per family per month. Swajal's success has demonstrated that an alternative delivery system for socio-economic essential services vis-a vis the present government-dominated trickle-down is probably a better option. Here the government is merely a facilitator and the NGO a temporary prop; it's the community which helps build, operate and maintain their delivery systems.
As we take leave, Beena Raikwal takes the Bank representative aside and points out the damaged paved pathways. One of Chirag's men smiles at her initiative: "Let's see if we can arrange for the stones, but the rest of the job and labour are yours." Raikwal nods: "Yes, of course. Hey, everybody, are you listening?" They all nod. Simayel, clearly, has found its path to development.