OCTOBER 2005 VOLUME 1 ISSUES 12
A NEWSLETTER FOR WATER FOR ASIAN CITIES PROGRAMME IN MADHYA PRADESH (INDIA)
India’s Water Economy: A Turbulent Future
India faces a turbulent water future. According to the
5.
World Bank report entitled “India’s Water Economy:
Bracing for a Turbulent Future” presented in a work-
shop at New Delhi, early this month, the current water
development and management system is not sustain-
able: unless dramatic changes are made - and made
6.
soon. The way in which government manages water,
India will have neither the cash to maintain and build
new infrastructure, nor the water required for the econ-
omy and for people. This Report examines the evolu-
tion of management of India’s waters, describes the
achievements of the past, and the looming set of chal-
lenges. The Report suggests what changes should be
considered and how to manage the transition from “the
ways of the past” to “the ways of the future” in princi-
pled but pragmatic manner. The Report addresses two
basic issues (i) the major water development and
management challenges facing India and (ii) the critical
measures to be taken to address these.
Some of the main findings and recommendations of
7.
the World Bank report are as given below:
1. Much human ingenuity is required to sustain life
and society in India’s highly variable climate.
2. India has reaped great benefits from its invest-
ments in water infrastructure. Over the part 150
years India has made large investments in large-
scale water infrastructure, much of which brings
water to previously water-scarce areas. The poor
have benefited hugely from such investments
3. India still needs a lot more water infrastructure.
There are regions of India that can benefit greatly
from increased investment in water infrastructure
of all scales. India can store only about 30 days
of rainfall, compared to 900 days in major river
basins in arid areas of developed countries. The
8.
problems of developing India, however, are not
limited to providing adequate quantities of water.
India’s cities and industries need to use water
more effectively and there will have to be mas-
sive investments in sewers and wastewater treat-
ment plants.
4. India’s development of water infrastructure has
not been accompanied by an improvement in
governance of water resources and water ser-
vices. The Indian state water apparatus still
shows little interest in the key issues of the man-
agement stage - participation, incentives, water
entitlements, transparency, entry of the private
sector, competition, accountability, financing and
environmental quality.
Much of the infrastructure crumbling. Public fi-
nancing is not available for the vital tasks of pro-
viding new water supply and wastewater infra-
• UN-HABITAT un-
structure to serve growing populations and the
unserved poor. dertakes Survey
There is a major financial resources gap. The
sector is facing a major financing gap. The real
of Water and
Sanitation Utili-
financial needs of the sector are growing - to meet
the costs of rehabilitating the existing stock of ties in Asia to
infrastructure and to build new infrastructure. On
the “supply side” there are ultimately only two
study their role
in combating
sources of financing - tax revenues and user
charges. The budgetary allocations to the water HIV/AIDS
sector is falling, as are payments by users. The
net result is a large and growing “financial gap”, • India ratifies the
which can be met by a combination of methods Stockholm Con-
which include greater allocations of budgetary
resources, more efficient use of those resources, vention on Per-
and greater contributions from water users. sistent Organic
People have shown great ingenuity in working Pollutants
around a poorly governed water system. The
urban middle class have learned to make do with (POPs) aiming at
eliminating or
irregular unpredictable and often polluted public
water services. They have developed coping restricting the
strategies which include investments in household
storage, purchasing of bottled water for drinking, production and
use of POPs
installation of household water purification sys-
tems, purchase of water from vendors and, like highly toxic to
their rural counterparts, private wells to tap the
groundwater. Although the costs are high - six
both humans
and animals.
times higher than the average payment to the
utility in Delhi, for example - this works for the
middle class. 80 per cent of domestic water supply
in India now comes from groundwater. Inside this issue:
Towards the new water state at the Union and
State levels. According to the World Bank Report,
Accessing Progress to- 2
India need a re-invigorated set of public water
ward the MDGs
institutions, which are built on the following im-
peratives: (i) focusing on developing a set of in-
Despite Willingness to
struments (including water entitlements, contracts 2
Pay, Why the Urban Poor
between providers and users, and pricing) and
do not have access to
incentives which govern the use of water; (ii)
WATSAN Services
stimulating competition in and for the market for
water and sanitation services; (iii) empowering
users by giving them clear, enforceable water TERI’s Rapid Assessment 3
entitlements; (iv) ending the culture of secrecy and of Water Supply Situation
making transparency the rule; (v) introducing in MP
incentive-based, participatory regulation of ser-
Human Values and Ethics
vices and water resources; 4
Contd. Page 2... in the Workplace
WATER FOR ASIAN CITIES PROGRAMME IN INDIA

Accessing Progress toward the MDGs - Asia holds the Key

Asian Development Bank (ADB) President Haru-
hiko Kuroda has said that the United Nations
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a series
of global developments targets, cannot be
achieved unless they are met in the Asia and
Pacific region.
In his address to the High Level Plenary Session
of the UN General Assembly, the ADB President
Mr. Haruhiko Kuroda has said that "With two-thirds of the world's poor
residing in Asia and the Pacific, it is abundantly clear that the region
holds the key to solving the global poverty challenge".
Mr. Kuroda noted that no other developing region of the world has been
more successful in creating economic growth and alleviating poverty. But
he added, "Achieving all the MDGs by 2015 still requires massive invest-
ments given the scale of deprivation in Asia and the Pacific."
"The region has more people with inadequate nutrition, more living in
slum conditions, and more without access to water and sanitation than
any other developing region in the world."
According to the ADB President, intensified efforts are called for to
alleviate poverty, sustained, rapid, and broad-based growth needs to be
attained, with more resources used for basic services, and ensuring that
women, indigenous people, and the poor are not left out.
Further promotion of the economic integration of Asia and the Pacific
should increase the region's resilience and growth potential. Regional
initiatives have enhanced connectivity and reduced barriers to trade and
investment. Intraregional trade has increased, and financial and mone-
tary cooperation has intensified.
Regional cooperation must also be expanded to directly impact on the
MDGs in areas such as environmental degradation, communicable
diseases, and migration of workers.

Despite Willingness to Pay, Why the Urban Poor do not have access
to WATSAN Services
Until recently water supply and sanitation, almost throughout the world
were provided by large, state owned monopolies. The poor institutional
structures, weak organizations, poor governance, illegal connections,
lack of effective metering, high unaccounted-for-water, and political
interference in day to day working of these utilities, however, led to dis-
mal performance by most of these utilities in providing quality services in
almost all the developing countries despite huge amounts of money
having been spent by the Governments in these countries in provisioning
of these services. Available research studies confirm that public spend-
ing on social services does not always translate to outcomes because
the delivery of public services is often weak and highly inefficient. The
poor has suffered inexplicably in the process, despite huge amounts of
subsidies having been provided to these utilities to make the services
available to the poor. Many of the poor, in city after city, are not even
connected to the networks. While some cities have tried to introduce low
connection charges for the poor, in fact poorly developed tertiary net-
works and the existence of corruption has meant that the costs of getting
connected prevent many poor people from becoming customers of the
utility. Often poor have a substantial willingness to pay for water supply
as shown by what they pay private water vendor, yet a large number of
such households lack access to decent water supplies. There has been
pressure to improve the efficiency of delivery services and ensure uni-
versal coverage of these services. Since the urban poor usually do not
live in a specific cluster, they may be spread over a number of geo-
graphically scattered settlements or may be living as pavement dwellers
on road side, it is difficult to provide them these services through tar-
geted water supply schemes without the fear of subsidy allocated for
them being not getting diverted to non-poor.
Their supply needs to be integrated with the municipal systems. These
compulsions combined with the greater consumer awareness, techno-
logical change, regulatory innovations and pressures from international
organizations have led many of the developing countries to initiate insti-
tutional reforms, including seeking private sector participation in differ-
ent formats, in building the infrastructure and running of these utilities.
Source: R.P.S. Malik, "Water and Poverty", Background Paper prepared for the World Bank Report on India's
Water Economy: Bracing for a Turbulent Future, 2005.

Continued from Page 1……..

(vi) putting the sector on a sound financial footing; (vii) investing heavily in development of a new generation of multi-disciplinary water resource profes-
sionals; (viii) making the environment a high priority; and (ix) making local people the first beneficiaries of major water projects. India according to the
World Bank report is rapidly approaching the end of an era in which society could “get by” despite the fact that government (a) has performed poorly
where it has engaged (in service delivery) and (b) has abandoned major areas where government engagement is critical (such as groundwater manage-
ment, conflict resolution, establishing and managing water entitlements and the financing of public goods such as flood control and wastewater treatment.
There are two main corollaries to this diagnosis. First, that a major push is needed - by government and by users working together to bring abstractions
from groundwater in line with recharge. While traditional technologies such as rainwater harvesting and tanks can play an important local role, they also
create new and additional demands. The simple fact is that in many parts of India demand will have to be brought down to match sustainable supply.
Global experience shows that this difficult and essential task will require a partnership between users and government.
India faces this challenge with many assets and some liabilities. The assets include citizens, communities and a private sector who have shown immense
ingenuity and creativity, attributes which are critical for the new era of water management. The major liability is a public water sector which is not
equipped to deal with the central tasks which only the government can to - developing an enabling legal and regulatory framework; putting into place
entitlement and pricing practices which will provide incentives for efficient, sustainable and flexible use of water; forming partnerships with communities
for participatory management of rivers and aquifers; providing transparent information for use in managing and monitoring the resource and services;
stimulating competition among providers though benchmarking and the entry of private sector and cooperative providers; regulating both the resource
and services; and financing true public goods, such as wastewater treatment.

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 OCTOBER 2005 VOLUME 1 ISSUES 12

TERI Undertakes Rapid Assessment of Water Supply Situation

in Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior and Jabalpur
UN-HABITAT has commissioned a study on water demand management (WDM) in four cities of Madhya
Pradesh to The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), New Delhi. Aimed at efficiency improvements in man-
agement and utilization of water, the study is looking at the cities of Bhopal, Gwalior, Jabalpur and Indore.
The scope of the project involves conducting a water balancing study, preparing a detailed database on a GIS
platform and making recommendations for reducing unaccounted for water so that available water supply is
efficiently and effectively distributed. The study aims at developing a comprehensive reform package for the
four project cities involving institutional, financial and technical issues in water supply. The implementation
plan shall thus involve developing WDM strategies and promote effective WDM policies, programmes and
investments for each city. The project also includes a component on capacity building of key stakeholders in
each city by conducting specifically targeted training programs for the municipal corporations of Bhopal,
Gwalior, Jabalpur and Indore.
Comprehending the multidisciplinary facets of this assignment, the TERI team on the project comprises of
engineers, planners, economists, environmental scientists and GIS experts. TERI has already undertaken a
“rapid assessment of the current water supply situation in these cities”. Activities undertaken in each of these Conducting energy efficiency studies

cities include (a) Collection of preliminary information and updating of base maps; (b) Collection and analysis
of metering/pumping records from utilities; (c) Mapping of the transmission and distribution network in digital
format; (d) Flow measurement, network analysis and water balance estimation; and (e) Study of the existing
tariff structure including billing, pricing, and recovery structure.
Assessment of the cities highlights that most of the information on operational aspects is either unavailable or
is available as a crude estimate. Similarly data for financial assessment is either inadequate or in improper
format. The maps available for the GIS work are also not to scale in most of the cases and some of them were
not updated. Absence of most of the data on leakages and reliability of the basic data has been a major con-
cern in the calculations on water balance audit. The audit is therefore based on the best information available,
which tends to be a mixture of assumptions that shall need formal vetting by the officials of Municipal Corpora-
tion in due course. Observations from the site visits and assessments reveal the following key issues:
Leakage from pipeline
1. Metering of water flow: None of the cities have adequate provisions for monitoring water flow either in
the transmission mains or distribution mains or at consumer end. Accordingly locations for installation of
bulk meters and district-metering areas (DMA) are being proposed for each of the cities.
2. Energy audit: Expenditure on energy consumption for operation of pumps and water treatment process
accounts for a high percentage of the overall expenditure. Realizing the huge potential to improve en-
ergy efficiency of the system, energy audit of the facilities is being proposed.
3. Planned maintenance: Financial assessments of the cities reveal that a very small percentage of total
expenditure is going towards maintenance activities. There is an urgent need to establish procedures for
planned maintenance with adequate resources allocated to this activity. Infrastructure replacement also
needs to be planned in advance.
4. Tariff and Revenue collection: It is not possible to realize the expenditure incurred on water supply
provisions at the current levels of water tariff and collection efficiency. Recommendation for revision in
tariff rate and improving revenue collection are being made which are expected to be discussed during A suitable locations for measuring flow
the stakeholder consultation process.
5. Institutional reforms: As expenses on establishment account for a very high percentage of the overall
expenditure, there is a need to utilize the manpower resources optimally.
6. Consumer awareness: It is necessary to build consumer awareness on water use and conservation
and build a consensus on reforms. An implementation action plan for this strategy is being formulated
accordingly.
7. Management Information Systems (MIS): The level of information available currently and its quality
calls for developing a comprehensive MIS that covers all aspects of water management.
Based on the assessment, WDM strategy and implementation plan are being developed and recommended
for individual cities. Time frame and activity plan for implementation of WDM strategies is being suggested. As
part of planned activities, feedback shall be obtained on the analyzed information and proposed implementa-
tion plan in each of the cities. Capacity building exercises shall also be undertaken for different functionaries of Flow monitoring at treatment plant in Bhopal
the Municipal Corporation on diverse subjects of WDM. Course content for capacity building of the decision
makers shall include introduction to principles of financial management; project formulation and appraisal; use
of latest tools for decision making such as GIS and water balance model; management control using MIS and
sharing of national and international best practices in efficient delivery of services.

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WATER FOR ASIAN CITIES PROGRAMME IN INDIA

Human Values and Ethics in the Workplace in WATSAN Sector

UN-HABITAT in collaboration with the Global Dharma Center, completed
two 1-day pilot workshops on “Human Values and Ethics in the Work-
place” in the M.P. Academy of Administration, Bhopal. These workshops
are part of UN-HABITAT’s “Human Values Water Sanitation, and Hygiene
Education” (HVWSHE) initiative. The purpose of these workshops is to
build the capacity for human values and ethics in the WATSAN sectors in
order to create a new ethic that will improve leadership and performance.
During each workshop, people participated in various self-reflection and
discussion exercises focused on six different topics which included (a)
The Nature of Human Values (b) “Living” Human Values at Work (c)
Recognizing and Practicing Ethics in the Workplace (d) Fostering a
Group Environment for Human Values and Ethics (e) Developing Purity
and Unity of Thought, Word and Action (f) Being a Champion of Human
Values and Ethics at Work
A total of 50 people participated in the pilot workshops, including Project
Management Unit leaders, Municipal Commissioners, a Mayor-in-Council
official, corporation staff from water supply and sanitation, Project Imple-
mentation Units leaders, NGO and DFID representatives, and project
consultants working in the project cities of Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior and
Jabalpur. During the workshop, the participants were asked to identify the A Workshop session on Human Values and Ethics in Progress
benefits and needs of human values and ethics in their field of work; their
replies included the following:
“Respect, involvement, sincerity and honesty help build strong teams. That leads to high quality, enhanced output, higher motivation, perseverance, and per-
sonal satisfaction.”
“Human values combined with vision and foresight enables us to do our best planning, which leads to money and time used well, as well as completing projects
in a timely, prompt way.”
“Patience and tolerance leads to doing the job better, plus more harmony and less irritation and upset in a group.”
“Sharing leads to work being done faster and with better quality.”
“Kindness and compassion leads to mutual satisfaction; mutual help and benefit; everyone is energized.”
One participant in the workshop summed up this discussion of the benefits and needs for human values and ethics by saying: “You can’t achieve anything
without human values.”
In the workshop conducted on the 21st of October, participants learned the importance of creating guiding principles for their workgroup based on their human
value strengths. Two separate groups worked to put into practice what they had learned. Below are the results of this exercise, depicting how the groups in-
cluded the human value strengths of each person:
“We the champions of human values in the project for Urban Water Supply and Environmental Improvement (UWSEI) are committed as good citizens to re-
spect the faith, truth, justice, for whom this project is envisaged in a holistic manner and with proper use of all resources made available under this project.”
“(1) To work for the public with courage and determination by having good dialogues with the public and giving them proper justice without any discrimination.
(2) We can help them with our quality work, by teaching them the value of time and showing them how to be sincere and responsible. (3) Guiding principles:
sincerity, discipline, devotion, love, justice, and implementation.”
At the end of each workshop, participants were asked to rank on a 1-5 scale, with 5 being “very high”, how they would prioritize the human values and ethics
capacity building in three areas: (1) MPUWSEIP; (2) the municipal water and sewerage authority; and (3) the municipal corporation. The average ranking for
each one was 4.3 out of 5.0, indicating a strong support and priority for human values and ethics among the participants.

Editorial Team
UN-HABITAT
Editorial Board Gopal Reddy, Secretary, UADD, State Govt. of M.P EP-16/17, Chandragupta Marg, Chanakyapuri
Savitur Prasad, Director, Govt. of India New Delhi - 110021 (India), Tel: +91-11-24104970 - 73
Fax: +91-11-24104961, Email: Wac.India@unhabitat.org
S.N. Mishra, Project Director, UWSEIP, Bhopal
Debashish Bhattacharjee, ADB, India Resident Mission
WAC Programme Project Office
Aniruddhe Mukerjee, CTA, UN-HABITAT, Bhopal E-1/191, Arera Colony, Bhopal - 462016
Tel: +91-755-2460836-37, Fax: +91-755-2460835
Editor Kulwant Singh, CTA, UN-HABITAT, New Delhi

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