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Until recently, it was the government or its agencies that designed and implemented rural water supply programmes. The village communities had no control over the supply mechanisms. While extensive coverage was achieved, the government-managed systems often proved to be inadequate and became defunct. Over the years, it has been seen that centralised government-controlled supply-driven programmes are unable to meet people's aspirations, making the supply of drinking water supply unsustainable. |
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| For this reason, Sector Reforms Pilot (SRP) Project has been introduced, first in a selected number of districts. The new strategy was demand-driven and stressed the institutionalisation of community participation to enhance the sustainability of drinking-water sources and systems. The communities would get the level of service they required on paying part of the capital costs and full operation and maintenance costs. The programme operated on the belief that local communities would participate if they were involved in the planning process, they themselves owned, implemented and managed the assets, and had sufficient funds to do so. |
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| The reform process started as a pilot project in 67 districts of the country, including three in Gujarat - Surat, Rajkot and Mehsana. The budget for each district was Rs 40 crores. |
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| After seeing the public response and the success of the sector reform, the Swajaldhara programme was introduced on December 25, 2002, to broaden the initiative. In June 2003 revised guidelines were issued taking into account the experiences obtained from the pilot districts. From then the Swajaldhara programme has two dharas or streams. The first, Swajaldhara - I, is directed at gram panchayats, groups of gram panchayats and intermediate panchayats at block or taluka level. Swajaldhara - II is directed at districts. In Gujarat, WASMO became the State Water and sanitation Mission (SWSM) charged with coordination and monitoring of the Swajaldhara programme. |
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| At present 13 Gujarat districts are part of the national Swajaldhara programme, while 11 others are covered under Sector Reforms Programme (State). Kutch district is exclusively covered by the ERR Project. The approach, guiding principles and institutional aspects of all these programmes are very similar. |
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| The institutional framework comprises the National Swajaldhara Monitoring Committee (NSMC), which is the national level monitoring agency. At the state level, WASMO is the State Water and sanitation Mission (SWSM) for Gujarat. WASMO coordinates the activities of the district level District Water and sanitation Committees (DWSC) and the village level Village Water and sanitation Committees (VWSC) or pani samitis. |
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