Relook at costing WASH services, says Andhra Pradesh Minister

The Hon. Vishwarup Pinipe, Minister of Rural Water Supplies and Sanitation in the Indian State of Andhra Pradesh emphasised the need to revise costing methodologies for rural water and sanitaiton services in India and other parts of the world.

During a keynote address at the IRC Symposium – Pump, Pipes and Promises – the Minister said that he appreciated findings from WASHCost (India) which highlighted missing cost components such as operation and maintenance, the cost of capital, the cost of source sustainability and other direct & indirect costs. He read out with approval the WASHCost (India) statement – “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”.

India currently focuses on capital and personnel costs, with some provision for variable costs (energy, chemicals, etc).

98% of rural habitations covered by safe water schemes

The Minister briefed the audience about the policy framework and programmes of the Government of India and Andhra Pradesh to provide clean drinking water and basic sanitation in the light of Millennium Development Goals. Community-Led Total Sanitation, demand driven approaches in rural water supply, public private partnerships to improve the continuity of urban water supply and the use of microcredit to women to improve access to water are some of the innovative approaches in India. The national Government provides 22 Rs billion (US$ 481 million) each year for the rural WASH sector, and 98% of habitations are covered under safe drinking water schemes, with 3.7 million hand pumps and 137,000 piped water supply schemes.

Mr Pinipe said that he hoped that the new Government of India rural drinking water programme guidelines and research projects such as WASHCost would help addressing some critical concerns about estimating real and total costs of WASH services through a life-cycle costs approach.

Mr Vishawarup and Mr Rajeshwara Rao, Andhra Pradesh Engineer in Chief for Rural Water Supply and Sanitation responded to questions on issues such as convergence with National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the biggest state sponsored employment guarantee programme.

WASHCost (India)

About 120 participants from 27 countries participated in this international symposium organised by IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre, the Netherlands. IRC is also anchoring the WASHCost five year action research project in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mozambique and Andhra Pradesh. In India, this project is anchored by Centre for Economic Social Studies (CESS), Hyderabad, in partnership with the Livelihoods and Natural Resources Management Institute (LNRMI) and the Watershed Support Services and Activities Network (WASSAN).

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 from WASHCost (India).

MV Rama Chandrudu, WASSAN.