“Go beyond Schedule of Rates… We need to relook at costing norms of WASH services …” Mr Vishawarup Pinipe, the Honorable Minister of Government of Andhra Pradesh.
The Honorable Minister called for greater cooperation at global and local levels for addressing the challenge of providing safe water and affordable Water, Sanitation and Hygiene services to all, particularly to poor, during his Key Note address at the inaugural session of IRC Symposium – “Pump, Pipes and Promises”, at The Hague, Netherlands on 16th Nov 2010.
While reflecting on the challenges in sustainable provision of WASH services in India and Andhra Pradesh, he emphasized the need for revising the costing methodology of WASH services in India and other parts of the world. He shared the details of costing methodology of WASH services in India which largely focus on capital costs and personnel costs at present. A small portion of the costs also provide for variable costs (energy, chemicals, etc). He appreciated the initial findings of WASHCost (India) Project which brought to the lime light the gaps in costing of WASH services in Andhra Pradesh and missing cost components such as operation & maintenance costs; cost of capital maintenance; cost of source sustainability and other direct & indirect costs in the estimation process. He agreed with the observations of WASHCost (India) Project which indicated that – “In spite of high investments by government, WASH services are unsustainable as the infrastructure fails to meet the expectations due to lack of investments on operation and maintenance, low level of community participation, etc. The WASH sector is under invested and investments are ad-hoc, leading to unsustainable and inequitable WASH services”.
While reflecting on the importance of water in sustaining life, he referred to various efforts made by Government of India and Andhra Pradesh to provide clean drinking water and basic sanitation to the population of India, in the light of Millennium Development Goals. He briefed the audience about the policy frame work and major programs of Government of India and Andhra Pradesh. Community Lead Total Sanitation, demand driven approaches in rural water supply, public private partnerships to improve the continuity of urban water supply and use of micro credit to women to improve the access to water are some of the innovative approaches in India for improving WASH services. Government of India provides 22 Rs billion each year for rural WASH sector. There are considerable achievements – 98% of habitations are covered under safe drinking water schemes; 3.7 million hand pumps and 1.37 lakh piped water supply scheme, etc are established in the country.
He hoped that the new guidelines by Government of India and research projects such as WASHCost would help addressing some of the critical concerns of estimating the real and total costs of WASH services on life cycle costs approach. He emphasized the need for including costs related to source sustainability; capital maintenance costs; water quality; support costs for capacity building of communities; planning and research, etc, in the revised framework of costing of WASH services.
Mr Vishawarup and Mr Rajeshwara Rao also responded to the queries of audience on a variety of issues such as convergence with National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the biggest state sponsored employment guarantee program and rural water supply department, etc.
This international symposium is being organized by IRC, International Water and Sanitation Centre, Netherlands as part of WASHCost Project. About 120 participants from 27 countries participated in this symposium to share and discuss the methodologies and tools of costing WASH services in rural and peri urban settlements in the world. IRC, Netherlands is anchoring WASHCost Project, which is a five year action research project. This project is implemented four countries – Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mozambique and Andhra Pradesh (India). WASHCost Project researches on the unit costs providing the WASH service delivery in rural and peri urban areas, based on live cycle cost approaches. In India, this project is anchored by Centre for Economic Social Studies, Hyderabad, in partnership with LNRMI and WASSAN.
Mr Vishwarup and Mr Rajeshwara Rao, Engineer In Chief, Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Department, GoAP represented Government of Andhra Pradesh and interacted with various delegates during the symposium. WASHCost (India) Project team members Dr Ratna Reddy (LNRMI); Dr Sneha Latha (CESS); Dr Rama Mohan Rao (CESS) and MV Rama Chandrudu, WASSAN participated in the symposium and shared initial findings of the action research project on estimating costs of providing WASH services in Andhra Pradesh. The Minister and the team participated in the reception program organized by The Mayor, The Municipality of The Hague City on the evening of 16th Nov 2010.
A report by MV Rama Chandrudu, WASSAN, Hyderabad, India on 16th Nov 2010 from The Hague, Netherlands.
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