126 OUT OF 177 - India way behind in sanitation, look at diarrhoea deaths: UNDP report.
Availability is real problem; public mobilisation, good governance must

 SONU JAIN
NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 9

Access not water INDIA loses most number of lives to diarrhoea in the world,
yet its military spending is eight times more than on water and sanitation.
According to the latest Human Development Report (HDR) released today, while
the country is making considerable progress on drinking water, it is lagging
on the sanitation front. Nearly two-third of India has no access to
sanitation even today. Of the 1.8 million diarrhoea deaths in the world,
India has 450,000.

India has moved up a notch on the UNDP's Human Development Index - it is 126
out of 177 countries, compared to 127 a year ago. The HDI is a composite
index based on income, health and education indicators.

At its present pace, India is going to miss the Millennium Development Goal
on sanitation which is halving the proportion of people without sustainable
access to safe drinking water and sanitation.

The report called 'Beyond Scarcity: power, poverty and the global water
crisis' is linked to the previous year's report which had shown that
despiteitseconomicgrowth,India'schildmortality continued to remain high.
Water and sanitation is key to saving lives of these children, the new
report states.

Not surprisingly, Bangladesh has upped India on this front too. "India may
outperform Bangladesh as a high growth globalisation successstory, buttablesareturnedwhenthebenchmark for success shifts to sanitation: despite an average income some 60% higher, India has a lower rate of sanitation coverage,'' says the
reportwhilepointingoutthat10yearsago,the two countriesfacedsimilarproblems.Sincethen,India has enjoyed far more rapid growth, widening the income gap between the two countries. But in rural sanitation, it has fallen behind.

Experts suggest that the question on water is not its availability but
access ."Today some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have
inadequate accesstowaterand2.6billionlack basic sanitation. These deficits
arerootedininstitutionsandpolitical choices and not in availability,'' said
Arunabha Ghosh, one of the author's of this year's report while speaking at
its release in New Delhi.

The report reiterates that it is the poor people who suffer the most: In
Delhi, Karachi and Kathmandu, fewer than 10% of households with piped water
re ceive the service 24 hours a day. The poor are less likely to be
connected, facing deprivation.

In Gujarat, there are waterlords who buy and dig deep wells and sell water
at high rates to the poor people. In parts of India, groundwater ta- bles
are falling by more than 1 metre a year, jeopardizing future agriculture
production. The report states that climate change is going to make the
situation more acute.

However, India demonstrates both problems andsolutions.Itispossibletoreversethesituation with additional investment and proper regula- tory policies. In Kerala, research following im-
plementationofsevenruralwaterprojectsfound that incidence of water-bourne
diseases fell by halfinfiveyearsafterconstructionofdeepwells.

The report is peppered with numerous case studies from across the country
that show how community mobilization with good governance can make a
difference. The National Slum Dwellers Federation in Mumbai galvanized
peopletoconstructlow-costtoilets.Thesuccess ful Total Sanitation Campaign in
Bangladesh, later adopted by West Bengal, has achieved ex traordinary
progress (see accompanying story).

In Hyderabad, the water utility has increased coverageandimprovedperformanceinrevenue collection, repairs and service provisions. Re searchinMaharashtrahasshownthatcontracting out billing, repairs, water treatment and infra structureupdatescanimproveperformance.The
report points to the importance of effective regulation to manage water resources better.Though Bangalore applies a rising block tariff - subsi dies benefit non-poor more than poor - the wealthiest of 20% of households receive 30% of watersubsidyandthepoorest20%receive10.5%. Involvement of citizens can make that vital difference: Citizens' report
card in Bangalore gave resident associations and community groups a voice in
reforming their water utility and improving accountability.

The UN report calls for eradication of perverse subsidies on water that lead
to its wastage. It saysthatifwaterweretobesensitively priced and regulated,
it was unlikely that a water intensive crop like sugarcane would be grown on
its current scale across Gujarat. "Because elec tricity subsidies tend to
rise with the size of holdinganddepthofwells,theyarehighlyregressive,
wealthier the producer, the bigger the support," it said. It says extending
check dams across all of India's rainfed farming areas would raise the value
of the monsoon crop from $36 billion a year to $180 billion for an initial
investment of $7 billion. It clarifies that rainwater harvesting does not
make large dams obsolete.

"Given the very high poverty rate in rainfed areas, it was difficult to
envisage another investmentwithmorepotentialtoenhancehumandevelopment and
extend benefits of India's economic success into rural areas," it said.


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