India: Improving urban water supply and sanitation service provision- Lessons from business plans for Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Haryana and international good practices- Report by the World Bank

This report by the World Bank identifies the key elements of a State-wide program for improving water supply and sanitation services and accountability on the basis of policies and institutions, infrastructure and financing and capacity building for professional services.

The purpose of the report is to distill lessons learnt for improving Water Supply and Sanitation (WSS) services in India, by reference to the recent WSS business plans prepared for the three States of Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Haryana and from various studies carried out by the World Bank on international good practices in urban water service delivery.

The report begins by summarizing the results of various international studies undertaken over past few years by the World Bank to better understand the makings of well run public WSS companies. These findings point towards the need to establish sectors which encourage the development of autonomous, accountable and customer oriented service providers. Within that framework the report provides suggestions on practical steps that can be taken by governments and service providers.

The key recommendations as highlighted by the report are the policy, institutional, financial and professional reforms that are needed to develop a comprehensive WSS sector program and accountability framework. The key elements of the sector program are:

• Clarifying the mandates of WSS service providers

• Improving the governance of WSS service providers

• Preparing predictable and sustainable financing programs

• Regulating the urban WSS services

• Developing procedures, building capacity and professionalizing actors of the WSS sector

The report concludes with a chapter which considers how the key findings from the business plan preparation can be operationalized. This requires consideration of how to combine and sequence the reforms, where to start, and the critical role that communication and consensus building plays in the process. The role of the central and state government and the issues that they should emphasize on are some of the important segments of conclusion.

Click on the link to read the full report.