India needs 24/7 piped drinking water to prevent life-threatening diseases

The news that Odisha has launched the first 24x7 clean water drinking supply project in Puri is welcome news and will come as an impetus to several similar schemes in other parts of the country. Pilot projects have been launched in Karnataka while plans have been under consideration in Delhi for nearly two decades. The urgent need for such programmes to ensure a continuous supply of hygienic water supply to the general public cannot be underscored sufficiently. The basic requirement of providing clean water supply at all times is one that has been neglected by successive governments ever since independence. Several have voiced their commitment to making piped drinking water available for everyone but there has been little progress in this direction. The Naveen Patnaik-led Odisha government's successful launch of the Puri project shows it is possible, with enough political will.

The scheme has gone on stream at a time when the health infrastructure of the country is sought to be upgraded in response to the devastating Covid pandemic. But health facilities do not merely mean the creation of hospitals, medical equipment and provision of more specialized physicians. It also means putting the focus on preventive health care. Clean drinking water forms the basis of such public health initiatives. It is the lack of potable drinking water in many parts of the country that has led to easily preventable diseases including life-threatening diarrhoea, dysentery and typhoid.

It is not widely recognized that potable water needs to be available round the clock rather than intermittently as is the case currently. There are innumerable benefits of supplying piped water continuously. A study carried out for the Karnataka project in Hubbali and Dharwar noted that such sustained supply leads to cleaner water since there are high levels of bacterial contamination in the first ten minutes of restarting water pressure. It also ensures better service to all consumers who can cut back on activities such as queuing and carrying water, thus saving time for more productive work. In addition, it reduces water wastage in overflowing storages and open taps. Leakages are also controlled through pressure management and flow measurement while water conservation is encouraged through volumetric tariffs.

In other words, not only is there a better quality of water supplied through the 24x7 system, it also leads to water conservation in the long run. Some states apart from Odisha have been considering such programmes but these have not gone beyond pilot projects. For instance, in Karnataka these have been carried out only in a limited way in Hubbali and Dharwad. Extension to other areas has been stalled owing to lack of political will. Similarly, a 24x7 water supply project was mooted during the time of the Shiela Dixit government in Delhi but was later put on hold. The current AAP government in the capital has sought to revive it but as of now there is little movement on the issue. On the other hand, it has definitely managed to improve tap water supply to large parts of the city by extending water pipelines to most areas, thereby reducing the use of water tankers.

Continuous water supply projects have also been taken up in a few cities like Chandigarh and Coimbatore. Work on the Chandigarh scheme will begin next year while the Coimbatore one is scheduled to begin operations in 2023.

Thus the progress on 24x7 water supply projects has been extremely slow. This is worrisome especially since the UN Water report of 2014 noted that over 120 million households in India lack access to clean water near their homes. On the plus side, the launch of the central government's Jal Jeevan Mission to supply clean tap water to all rural households by 2024 seems to have had some impact. Latest official data shows that assured piped water supply has risen from 7 to 31 per cent in the 117 poorest districts of the country ever since the scheme was launched in 2019.

While this is encouraging, the fact is that access to potable piped drinking water still remains at an alarmingly low level. This is largely because the issue of drinking water has never been given priority in government development programmes. The reason is this is not an issue that yields immediate political gains. The pandemic, however, has highlighted the fact that preventive health is of critical importance while dealing with unforeseen medical emergencies like Covid. Patients with robust health are better equipped to face the virus than those who have pre-existing diseases or have low immunity.

The need for better health and higher immunity of the entire population has become a factor as the country copes with the impact of the Covid pandemic. These health issues also have economic implications. The failure to upgrade medical facilities adequately led to the crisis overwhelming the entire country in the second Covid surge. This in turn ensured that the economic revival expected in the current fiscal was slowed down considerably. Growth expectations for 2021-22 are now being scaled down by most rating agencies and financial institutions.

But it is not enough just to improve medical facilities. Preventive health also needs to be made a priority, not only for tiding over the immediate crisis but for ensuring long term improvement in health parameters of the population. The 24x7 Puri water supply project is thus a step in the right direction. It will become meaningful, however, only if other states decide to implement similar schemes to improve drinking water supply to the masses.