Urban Water

While recognizing that the urban sector is a State subject (administered by State governments), and water and sanitation are local issues with predominantly local solutions, the Government of India (GoI) believes it has an important and useful role to play in facilitating reforms in urban water supply and sanitation services. This is because:

This database aims to evolve suitable policy in the field of water supply and sanitation sector and is useful in analyzing the data for implementing suitable programmes in India. As a first step, it was proposed to collect data for all 423 Class I cities in the country, as per census 2001 in the already devised and approved formats for Water Supply Sewerage and Solid Waste Management.

The Central Public Health and Environmental Engineering Organisation (CPHEEO) is a technical wing of the Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, and deals with the matters related to urban water supply and sanitation including solid waste management in the country. 

Water supply is one of the five urban basic services being addressed by the Government of India under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). The Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) with support from Asian Development Bank (ADB) embarked on a Benchmarking and Water Utilities Data Book Project for 20 selected water utilities in India.

Some of the changes proposed are as follows –

• In section 4 of the principal Act, in sub-section (1), for clauses (a) and (b), the following clauses shall be substituted, namely:-
• the number of wells that were in existence in the scheduled area immediately before the date of commencement of this Act;
• the use of groundwater in the scheduled area for agricultural purposes immediately before the date of commencement of this Act;
• the number of wells from which water is extracted for domestic purposes;
• the number of wells from which water is extracted for industries, automobile service centres, multipurpose halls and other commercial centres;
• the number of water sources both public and private;
  • In sub-section (2), for item (vii), the following items shall be substituted namely:-
  • the details of the methods  adopted for groundwater conservation and rain water harvesting;
  • the quality of water with scientific evidence;
  • such other matter as may be prescribed.

This 2004 Project Appraisal Document of the World Bank for the Karnataka Urban Water Sector Improvement Project provides the long-term vision for the urban water sector in the State of Karnataka. The project aims to turn its performance into high quality, sustainable services in all urban local bodies.

Mr. S.S. Ranganathan, author of this guest post, is a retired senior executive of Ion Exchange and currently a consultant based in Bangalore.

He can be reached at: ss.ranganathan@gmail.com , +91-9343734229

WATER SECURITY FOR THE RESIDENTS OF APARTMENTS & GATED COMMUNITIES -  S.S.Ranganathan

This book was commissioned by the Asian Development Bank as part of its support to the Asia-Pacific Water Forum (APWF), an independent, non-partisan, non-political network of institution

This paper by Barbara Evans was presented at the Rockerfeller Foundation Urban Summit (1-6 J