INTRODUCTION

The Sector Reforms Project has been introduced in selected districts of the country, including West Tripura district, on an experimental basis. It is part of the Rajiv Gandhi National Drinking Water Mission. The Project envisages community participation in creating and maintaining drinking water sources and sanitation facilities. It re-defines the role of the government from the earlier model of a provider to that of a facilitator. The Sector Reforms Project envisages Mission approach, requiring creation of institutions that are relatively more independent and focused. The Project is driven by demand originating from within the community in contrast to the erstwhile practice of thrusting a source on the community without involving them. The Project envisages high level of people’s participation for making them self-reliant in due course of time. It aims at capacity building at the village level and creating awareness. In short, the objectives of the pilot Project are the following;

a) Increasing community participation and creating awareness that water is a resource which has to be paid for. The operational and maintenance aspect of the source created would be the responsibility of the community. The community need to consider imposition of user charge for maintenance of the source.

b) Creating adequate water sources in the district within a specified time-frame of two years.

c) Granting autonomy to the village in choice of source and manner of its implementation.

d) Creating gender sensitivity towards drinking water problems since mostly it is women who are involved in the matter.

e) Emphasizing quality of source so that it is sustainable and safe for drinking purpose.

INITIATION OF THE PROJECT

West Tripura District has approximate population of 15 lakhs. It is densely populated and more than 25% of its population belong to Scheduled Tribes. A major section of the population live below poverty line, specially in the hilly areas. The district is remotely located in the national context and, by implication, the benefits of modern technologies are late to arrive here. There were 3824 villages in 420 Gram Panchayats of 15 Blocks of West District when the Project was initiated. Out of these, 2194 were ‘fully covered’(FC), 1459 were ‘partially covered’(PC) and 171 villages were ‘not covered’(NC) as on 1^st April, 2001. However, these statistical figures do not necessarily indicate ground realities. The classification of villages as FC, PC and NC is based on the criteria of the Ministry of Rural Development that one hand pump will ordinarily deliver 12 litres of water per minute and such a source will be sufficient to meet the needs of 250 persons. In West Tripura District many hand pumps discharges much less.

             The District adopted the Sector Reforms Project in the financial year 2000-01. The District Water and Sanitation Mission (DWSM) was constituted as per guidelines of Sector Reforms Project and registered as a Society with its own bye-laws. The ground works consumed some time and effective implementation could start only from November, 2000, onwards. The total cost of Project sanctioned for the Mission is Rs 28.19 crores of which Rs 7.70 crores was received in March 2000 as the first installment. A separate bank account is maintained for the Mission operated jointly by the Executive Engineer, PHE and the District Collector. The Mission began implementing the drinking water component of the Project in the first phase.

The Project implementation has taken place in the following stages;

                 i)   a Society had to be formed and registered.

     ii)   The members of the society, officials and non-officials, had to be sensitized with sector reforms concept.

    iii)  The panchayati raj institutions had to be sensitized with sector reforms concept.

    iv)    The ordinary people in rural areas had to be sensitized with the sector reforms concept and their confidence won. They had to form Village Water and Sanitation Committee (VWSC) and mobilize public contribution for taking up source creating activities.

    v)     The members of the press and NGOs and other opinion makers had to be sensitized and their confidence won.

   vi)      The office procedures for various formalities had to be evolved so that it meets the requirements of effective delivery and monitoring.

   vii)      Deployment of staff and their training had to be arranged.

CREATION OF INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK AT DISTRICT LEVEL

              There was confusion in the initial phase of constituting the Society. The Guidelines required the Head of District Council to lead the Mission. The geographical area of West Tripura District has two District Councils – one under the 72^nd Amendment of the Constitution and the other exclusively for tribal areas under the VI the Schedule of the Constitution. The matter was resolved by securing the co-operation of both the Councils in a series of informal meetings. The Chairman of the District Council under the Panchayati Raj, the Zilla Sabhadhipati, took over as the Chairman of the Mission. Suitable representatives of the District Council for Tribal Areas were also inducted in the Mission with assurances that the interest of tribal areas would be protected without compromising the powers of District Council for Tribal Areas. The members of the District Water and Sanitation Mission met on several occasions from November 2000 to January 2001. The meetings were held more frequently in the initial stage so as to become clear of the concepts of the Project and evolve a workable model in the context of the State of Tripura. The issues confusing the Mission in the beginning were the following;

a)              The members representing Tripura Tribal Area Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) area, which has maximum problem relating to drinking water, felt that their interest would be compromised vis a vis the other District Council under Panchyati Raj (Zilla Parishad)

b)             Whether the VWSC are to be created for each source or one for each Gram Panchayat? What about Gram Panchayats which fall under the jurisdiction of TTAADC also?

c)             What will be the relationship of the VWSC with the Gram Panchayats? Will it be independent of it or will it form part of it with certain degree of autonomy?

d)              Whether purchase of all material (such as cement, iron rods etc.) is to be made by the VWSC on their own or certain part of it should be made centrally? Many of the VWSC would be in remote areas where such material would not be easily available.

e)              Whether NGOs are available in the State to assist in the Project implementation?

                  One of the issues that came up for discussion was the marginal role of Blocks and Panchayat Samiti under the Project. The Village Water and Sanitation Committee, a village level organization, was to directly communicate with the District Water and Sanitation Committee, the executive wing of DWSM, a body at the District level. This threw up unusual problems of administrative nature such as identifying the signature of the members of VWSCs formed, monitoring of the works, distribution of materials etc.. The DWSM was of the opinion that an excessive centralization at the district level would make the implementation difficult. Some members of the DWSM were against the idea of routing the proposals of VWSC through the Panchayat Samitis.  The Mission guidelines provided flexibility to the DWSM for evolving a mechanism best suited to the district. Accordingly, it was decided that District Water and Sanitation Committee (DWSC), the executive wing of the DWSM, shall involve Block Development Officers and the Zonal Development Officers of the District Council for the administrative aspects of Project execution such as scrutiny, monitoring, distribution etc.. A Block Water & Sanitation Committee was accordingly constituted with mandate to monitor progress of work and take up sources with high capital cost that covered several Gram Panchayats. The decision making power at village level, it was decided, shall rest solely with the VWSC, which, in any case, shall also function as a Committee of the Gram Panchayat for drinking water. Further, it was felt that NGOs capable of undertaking the responsibilities under the Project were not available in the District. The areas with acute drinking water problems are affected by insurgency making it difficult for NGOs to have a meaningful presence.

CREATION OF INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK AT VILLAGE LEVEL:

The concept of Sector Reforms envisages a major role for the Village Water and Sanitation Committee. The actual implementation of Project is also left on to their wisdom. The officials and engineers were skeptical that such freedom would be practical. There was fear of money being defalcated. The technical members questioned the ability of the villagers to execute the Project on their own. Hence, in the first stage, officials at different levels whose cooperation was critical to the success of the Project, were sensitized about the rationale behind Sector Reforms Project. The fear of defalcation was addressed by making suitable guidelines that do not interfere with the independence of the VWSC but allows space for preventive action if a report is received. The suspicion of technical incapability was addressed also. The local labourers had constructed a large number of sources in remote areas of the District in the past and many of them had, thus, acquired the skill for such works. These included construction of ring-well, sanitary well, Mark III etc.. Further training was proposed to be imparted at the Block level for the VWSCs. As regard the high capital cost sources such as Deep tube well, it was decided that technical supervisors shall be detailed for monitoring the progress. The line department i.e. Public Health Engineering, shall closely inspect the execution of these works. The fund will also be released in installments so that the works are conducted fairly and only after proper inspection reports are received that the subsequent installment would be released.


INVOLVEMENT OF THE PANCHYATI RAJ INSTITUTIONS:

The acceptance by common people was the greatest support needed for the Project. The Panchayati Raj Institutions played an invaluable role in this regard. The Sabhadhipati of the Zilla Parishad, also the Chairman of DWSM, personally attended a few workshop at National level and strongly propagated the Project theme on his return. He was well received at the lower levels despite initial hesitation. People had for long been taking water as an assured service to be provided by the government and the idea of paying for it seemed hard to accept. However, the efforts of the Zilla Parishad and the Panchayat Samiti created a conducive environment. All the 15 Blocks in the District held exclusive workshop on the Project in the month of December, 2000, where ‘Pradhans’ of all the villages were invited. Leaflets were distributed in local dialects, Bengali and Kok borok, explaining the salient features of the Sector Reforms concept. The Project was discussed by the common people in the Gram Sangsad organized for Gramodaya, an annual exercise of participatory Planning at the village level. The plans of Gramodaya are finally compiled at the Block and District level to formulate the Block and District Plan. As a direct consequence to the discussions, Village and Water Sanitation Committees were formed in many Gram Panchayat and contribution obtained from common people for creation of water sources of their preference. As on 31-03-2002, the villagers had constituted VWSC in 400 out of the 420 Gram Panchayats.

Efforts were also made to sensitise the Press with the Sector Reforms concept and the Zilla Sabhadhipati held a press conference especially for this purpose. Although the initial reaction of the Press was not positive, they have not been averse to the concept after many of their doubts were dispelled.

DEVELOPMENT OF OFFICE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS:

The Office management aspect of the Mission was the next great hurdle in the implementation of the Project. Although the budget of the Mission is considerably high, the Mission guideline is to re-deploy existing manpower. The district administration being short of manpower found this task very difficult. The risk of Departmentalization was also high. The Mission approach implied a faster, non-departmental mode of operation. The initial selection of Member Secretary of District Water & Sanitation Committee, the key man in the Mission hierarchy, was an Executive Engineer of the Public Health Engineering but he was asked to hold this responsibility as an additional charge. Incidentally, the concerned Executive Engineer was also the most busy Officer of his department being a Drawing & Disbursing Officer and scarcely had time for the Mission. As a consequence, he was dependent much on the support of his departmental staff for running the Project. Most of the staff supporting him scarcely understood the difference in approach between the present Project and the schemes they were implementing earlier. Their Office system was also not equipped to deal with the volume of documents being received from VWSCs and the procedure of monetary transactions involved. The documents and requests being received from the villages were consequently getting misplaced or lost. The DWSC was unable to sanction Projects in the absence of requisite secretarial support. The first Project was sanctioned in the month of February 2001 in the village of Twithumpui in Teliamura Sub-division. It was for construction of a ring well. Subsequently, in the month of March, 2001, a Project for Deep Tube Well was sanctioned for Dukli Block.

In the month of May 2001, an analysis of the Mission’s performance indicated that although the DWSC had sanctioned many Projects and accepted formation of many VWSCs, the number of Projects for which money had actually been released stood at two only. An urgent need was felt to address the lacunae in the Office management. This was important because after successful Information, Education and Communication (IEC) activities, the demands for various sources were fast flowing in. The villagers had deposited their contribution in the Banks in many cases and were getting restive at the delay in receiving the Mission’s contribution. If the money was not released soon, they could become disillusioned. Taking the above into account, it was decided to seek the service of the Executive Engineer, PHE, on full time basis in the Office of the District Water and Sanitation Committee. The matter was taken up with the State government and soon an Executive Engineer was posted in the Office of the DM & Collector (West) with directions to assume the responsibility of Member Secretary, DWSC, operating from the Collectorate. In the meantime, observing that the Mission would need to address the demands generated by 420 Gram Panchayat and 172 ADC Villages, a DWSC Cell in the Office of the DM & Collector was opened with five dedicated secretarial staff to look after Sector Reforms Project exclusively. Anticipating that manpower shortage would not be easy to overcome, the DWSC decided to computerize its entire operation. A software was developed with the assistance of National Informatics Centre (NIC) to manage the data electronically. The Software maintains vital information in respect of a VWSC and also executes clerical functions such as reflecting the total cost of a Project, the materials component and the mandays component of the cost, generation of sanction orders, managing cost estimates on localized basis etc.. Files of separate colours for the Blocks were introduced to make file retrieval and storage easy.

STANDARDIZATION OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROCESSES:

 The procedure of the DWSC to sanction a Project was standardized. An application form was designed containing terms and conditions of the Sector Reforms concept and circulated to all Gram Panchayats. The application form, modeled as a Memorandum of Understanding(MOU) between the VWSC and the DWSM, was to be submitted giving all relevant details and expressing acceptance of the terms. These applications are channelised through the Block Development Officers (BDOs) or the Zonal Development Officer (ZDO), TTAADC, who authenticate the signatures and verify other facts stated by the VWSCs before sending the same to the DWSC Cell. A checklist is provided to the BDOs /ZDOs, TTAADC, to assist them in making systematic verification. The BDOs process applications received from all 420 Gram Panchayats in the District, and were entrusted with the responsibility of forming one VWSC in each Gram Panchayat. The ZDO, TTAADC, processes requests from 172 ADC villages and has been entrusted with the responsibility of forming one VWSC in each ADC village. The DWSC Cell scrutinizes the applications and places these in the meetings of the DWSC for clearance. After the clearance is granted by the DWSC, the MOU is signed and a Memo issued to the VWSC acknowledging the acceptance of the VWSC formation. The memo contains a unique, computer generated identity number for the concerned VWSC which they would require to quote in future correspondence. The requests for drinking water sources are received along with the proposal for the constitution of VWSC as well as subsequent to signing of MOU. The documents are checked to confirm if 10% contribution has been deposited in the Bank account with reference to the standard estimate for the source. The community contribution is obtained by the VWSC in cash but the VWSC may also cover the cost of contribution, fully or partially, by assurances of free labour from the community. When the documents are found complete in all respects, the same is placed in the meetings of DWSC. Sanction orders for approved works are generated through a computer software. The material component of the work order is divided into two parts. Some of the material components are not locally available, and if the purchase of the same were to be entrusted to the VWSC, it was feared that large scale theft from the existing sources could result, for sale to the VWSC through the secondary market. The responsibility of supply of such material had been fixed on Executive Enginner, Rural Development, through his store purchase. The store materials were supplied and stocked in the Block Office, from where the VWSCs lifted them to the work site. However, the supply through Stores was subsequently abandoned on the request of the Panchayati Raj bodies in view of delay in effecting supplies.

Standard estimate has been prepared for sanction of projects which are Block-specific. It is based on past experience in creating such sources. In case of innovative sources, the Executive Engineer, PHE examines the cost estimates technically. It was felt that there could be cost over runs in the interior areas of the District where communication links are poor. Therefore, the BDOs have been empowered to recommend up to 10% of extra cost incurred in excess of the standard estimates in case of interior areas after being satisfied of the need for the same. He would conduct an inspection for such need through a technical staff available in his office. Detailed guidelines have been issued to the Block Development Officers, the Village Water & Sanitation Committees and the Banks on the operational aspects.

ANALYSIS OF PROJECT ACHIEVEMENTS & POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

     a)      The acceptance of Sector Reforms concept by the Panchayati Raj institutions is the key to its successful implementation at the village level. Hence, the IEC activities should concentrate on this aspect. The community has already collected Rs 64 lakhs by July 2002 under Sector Reforms in West Tripura District, of which Rs 52 Lakhs is in cash and the balance as labour. This was possible because of the Panchayati Raj institutions and their ability to mobilize public opinion in favour of Sector Reforms. Further, the IEC activity must also aim to alleviate fears of technicians and other government officers who have been traditionally involved in creating water sources in order that they extend full support to the reform process. Well-concerted IEC activities are important for the reforms to take roots.

b)      The total number of sources existing at the start of the project and one year later is as tabulated hereunder:

c)      As regards high capital cost source such as deep tube wells and overhead tanks, the village level institutions have to be better sensitized about the economics of investment. The cost of a deep tube well is almost Rs 18 lakhs and it serves about 1500 families in Tripura. The time taken for construction is approximately 18 months. The contribution of community for such a source is Rs 1.8 lakhs which appears formidable in the context of the high poverty levels in the State. However, the cost can be made very manageable if contribution is spread over the life cycle of the Project. As for example, if each family were to contribute Rs 5.00 only per month for the Project life cycle, the total amount collected would be (1500 X 5 X 18 =)   Rs 1, 35,000/-. In addition, the community can also contribute free labour for laying of pipeline and the estimated cost for labour in the standard estimate comes to nearly Rs 60,000/-. A judicious mix of cash and labour contribution can easily enable the community to choose a high capital cost source.

d)      Similarly, an overhead tank costing Rs 25 lakhs can also be constructed near a deep tube well for which community contribution of Rs 2.5 lakhs would have to be raised. It can increase the coverage by at least 1000 families in addition to 1500 families that a deep tube well is ordinarily servicing. Assuming that it will take 2 years to complete the overhead tank, and each family pays Rs 5.00 per month during the project cycle, the total collection will stand at ( 2500 X 5 X 24 =) Rs 3.00 lakhs which is sufficient for the community contribution. It is essential that the collection of contribution from the community be simplified for high cost strategies and adequate publicity be given to this aspect for infusing confidence in the community lest they should abstain from such strategies out of misplaced fear of high contribution involved.

e)      The maintenance of sources is an important criterion for sustainability. In March 2001, prior to Sector Reforms, there were 7800 shallow tube wells in the district out of which 534 were unserviceable, accounting for 6.85% of the total. In March 2002, there were 8759 shallow tube wells out of which 1788 were unserviceable, accounting for 20.5% of total. This quantum jump in unserviceable sources was on account of the sudden transfer of responsibility for maintenance to the community as envisaged in the Sector Reforms policy. It would be prudent if old sources, created prior to Sector Reforms, are maintained in the traditional way for the first year of the Sector Reforms before responsibility is transferred to the VWSCs. The Panchayati Raj institutions in Tripura have devised means of collecting community contribution for maintenance by levying a charge of Re 1.00 per family per month. They had accumulated a fund of Rs 3.5 lakhs by March 2002 by this means. Maintenance strategies must receive high importance in the Sector Reforms process.

f)       A User Committee has been formed for each source and these are composed of women since they have the greatest stake in the provision of drinking water. It is expected that the involvement of women in drinking water source creation and maintenance would make the process more sustainable in future. Involvement of women is key to the success of Sector Reforms in drinking water sector.

MICRO-ISSUES TO BE MONITORED AT DISTRICT LEVEL FOR SUCCESS OF THE MISSION: 

            The following micro issues, to be closely monitored by the DWSM, is vital for the success of reforms process;

                  I. the actual implementation of work is inspected systematically by the BDOs and other field functionaries;

                 II.  guidelines for the VWSC are duly followed;

                III.  returns are regularly submitted by the BDOs to enable monitoring at the district level;

               IV.  training is imparted on regular basis at the Block level;

                V.  user committees are formed with women and decisions taken on future maintenance;

              VI.  store materials are distributed expeditiously;

               VII.  utilization reports are received on completion of projects;

              VIII.  innovative sources are designed and propagated. These must be cost effective;

               IX.   water recharge and harvesting is also taken seriously by the community;

                X.   water quality is periodically tested and village level knowledge for such checking imparted;

                XI.  ensuring that more high-capital cost sources such as deep tube wells etc. are in demand   because they provide safer water and have longer life span.

               XII. provision of drinking water sources in schools be encouraged with active participation of students;

              XIII. one time maintenance of old sources constructed prior to Sector Reforms be undertaken taking 10% contribution, and then the sources handed over to the VWSCs for future maintenance exclusively by the community; and

              XIV. contribution of Re1.00 per family per month be collected regularly by the VWSCs for sustaining creation and maintenance of drinking water sources. 

CONCLUSION

            The Sector Reforms concept has found acceptability in West Tripura District despite initial reservation on various accounts. The supportive role of the Panchayati Raj institutions contributed invaluably towards creation of a conducive environment. The public contribution is being received mostly in cash and also as free labour where poverty is endemic. Innovative sources have been taken up in some Blocks. The preference has been in favour of low cost, low gestation period sources. There is need to create awareness and confidence among people to take up high capital cost sources which provide very safe drinking water and are more durable.