Gujarat's 100% rural households get clean drinking water, Modi think-tank claims: Says state No 1 in water index

By Our Representative
Ranking Gujarat No 1 in Composite Water Management Index (CWMI) for the second successive year, the Modi government's powerful policy-making body, Niti Aayog, appears to have left no stone unturned in order to "prove" how it has reached this drastic conclusion. One of the greatest "successes" it cites in this respect is --believe it or not-- Gujarat has "achieved" a 100% score in the ‘rural drinking water’ theme of the Water Index.
Sourcing on a site run by the Gujarat government, www.gujaratindia.com, instead of assessing things independently, which is what a policy-making body should ideally do, the Niti Aayog report, released this month, claims that this 100% score has been made possible because the state government "provides clean water to all of its ~35 million rural residents." Giving credit for this to Gujarat’s rural water supply programme, led by the state’s Water and Sanitation Management Organisation (WASMO), the report says, its main aim has been "to supply the village community with adequate, regular and safe water through household-level tap water connectivity, including households of people from backward communities."
It adds, "The programme strives to build a sustainable model through building capacity of village communities and empowering them to manage water resources themselves. The programme is based on a unique cost-sharing model, where the community partially shares the cost, owns the drinking water supply assets, and holds the operation and maintenance responsibilities."
"As a result of this programme", the report continues, initially, villagers were "mobilized to discuss the key problems that the local drinking supply system suffers from", adding, "These efforts involved participation by NGOs to ensure the inclusion of all views, especially those of women and the poorer members of the village."

Based on these discussions, a Village Action Plan (VAP) was drawn up with 10% of the estimated programme cost collected from residents and 90% contributed by WASMO, the report continues to claim, adding, a representative ‘Pani Samiti’ for the village was then "established to plan and implement the programme."

"Finally", the report says, WASMO and its partner organizations provided hand-holding and capacity building support to the Pani Samitis for a year, to ensure that the programme is technically and financially sound, and thus sustainable, with a huge positive impact: The rural water supply project is being providing clean water access to villages in all state districts.
"As of the end of 2013, ~50% of the villages completed schemes at an investment of Rs 800 crore, and Pani Samitis were formed in almost all of the ~18,400 villages in the state", the report contends, adding, "This programme has been the driver of Gujarat’s 100% achievement in the ‘rural drinking water’ category of the Index, helping the state fully cover all rural habitations and achieve a 100% decline in rural water quality incidents in FY 16-17."
Ironically, the claim of 100% success with the help of Pani Samitis or water committees stands in sharp contrast to what the report seeks to suggest elsewhere: Just about 15% -- one of the worst in India -- irrigated command areas have operational Water Users' Associations (WUAs), a community-driven scheme, with the right to manage all water-related issues. As many as 12 other states are better performers in this.
Yet, it continues, the lessons Gujarat has for other states include mobilizing community participation by "tapping" local knowledge base of problems and challenges surrounding water supply systems, even as "ensuring true representation through partnerships with NGOs and other relevant organizations."
It is not just the rural areas that this "success" is visible, the report suggests. Even in urban areas, it says, 100% urban population has been "provided drinking water supply." These are not the only successes that the report seeks to cite for Gujarat.
The capacity installed in the state to treat the urban waste water as a proportion of the total estimated waste water generated in the urban areas of Gujarat, the report claims, is 71%, the highest in India. Then, Gujarat treats, says the report, 62% of waste-water.

Comments

Rathindra Roy said…

Bullshit! Even dumb ass students cheating in exams know that you have build in a certain level of failure to be credible, but then this dude did not go to college to experience that!

June 17, 2018

Girl child education: 20 major states 'score' better than Gujarat, says GoI report

By Rajiv Shah
A Government of India report, released last month, has suggested that “model” Gujarat has failed to make any progress vis-à-vis other states in ensuring that girls continue to remain enrolled after they leave primary schools. The report finds that, in the age group 14-17, Gujarat’s 71% girls are enrolled at the secondary and higher secondary level, which is worse than 20 out of 22 major states for which data have been made available.

Savarkar in Ahmedabad "declared support" to two-nation theory in 1937, followed by Jinnah three years later

By Our Representative
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Counterview Desk
Pointing out that people's issues take a backseat in Jharkhand's 2019 assembly elections, the state's civil rights organization, the Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha, a coalition of activists and people’s organisations, has said that political parties have largely ignored in their electoral manifestos the need to implement the fifth schedule of the Constitution in a predominantly tribal district.

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By Shamsul Islam*
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*** Before sharing my views on the tasks of artists-writers-intellectuals in the times of fascism, let me briefly define fascism and how it is different from totalitarianism. Totalitarianism is political concept, a dictatorship of an individual, family or group which prohibits opposition in any form, and exercises an extremely high degree of control over public and private life. It is also described as authoritarianism.
Whereas fascism, while retaining all these repressive characteristics, also believes in god-ordained superiority of race, cultur…

Ex-World Bank chief economist doubts spurt in India's ease of doing business rank

By Rajiv Shah
This is in continuation of my previous blog where I had quoted from a commentary which top economist Prof Kaushik Basu had written in the New York Times (NYT) a little less than a month ago, on November 6, to be exact. He recalled this article through a tweet on November 29, soon after it was made known that India's growth rate had slumped (officially!) to 4.5%.

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By Shamsul Islam*
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By Tapan Bose*
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Rushdie, Pamuk, 260 writers tell Modi: Aatish episode casts chill on public discourse

Counterview Desk
As many as 260 writers, journalists, artists, academics and activists across the world, including Salman Rushdie, British Indian novelist, Orhan Pamuk, Turkish novelist and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in literature, and Margaret Atwood, Canadian poet and novelist, have called upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi to review the decision to strip British Indian writer Aatish Taseer of his overseas Indian citizenship.

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By RK Misra*
The political developments in neighbouring Maharashtra where a Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government assumed office has had a trickle down effect in Gujarat with both the ruling BJP and the Congress opposition going into revamp mode.

Ships recycling Bill 'allows' India to be turned into a landfill for foreign hazardous waste

Counterview Desk
In a letter to M Venkaiah Naidu, chairman, Rajya Sabha, senior activist Gopal Krishna of the Toxics Watch Alliance has said that the Recycling of Ships Bill, 2019 should be referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate Change to "safeguard country’s maritime environment from harmful and hazardous wastes and materials".

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