The Evolving Vilage Water Supply Situation

The Evolving Village Water Supply Situation and the Needs to
Adjust the Water Programs to the New Reality

4. GSDA has successfully established, at the state level, a large administrative and technical structure capable of carrying out very important activities which drastically alleviated the dramatic water situation of the rural areas during the past twenty years.

5. Hundreds of thousands of boreholes were drilled, even in the most remote and often unaccessible villages. With exception of some small padas, often located in remote areas, it is almost impossible to find any village where boreholes were not drilled. GSDA activities, over the past twenty years, have helped to understand the overall groundwater situation in the state and to establish a data bank of boreholes. Studies regarding the groundwater characteristics of the areas covering the state have also been carried out.

6. The government has invested huge amounts of money in the drilling program during the past two decades. A borehole is a permanent structure when drilled in hard rock like basalt (basalt covers nearly 90% of Maharashtra); it may last hundreds of years if properly maintained by replacing the protective casing and the pump, when required. Therefore, the drilling of successful boreholes in hard rock in a good investment.

7. In general, there is no need to drill more than one successful borehole equipped with a hand-pump for every 200 people. The author has no valid statistical figures to show that this average has already been reached; however, most probably it may not be far from it. Therefore, at this point, the most important activities related to the rural village water program should be to keep the existing boreholes in working order and reduce the activities related to drilling.

8. There is no doubt that drilling should be continued in order to meet the water needs of the increasing population and the water requirement arising from recurrent droughts in low raifall areas. However, the main effort should be to allocate adequate fund for maintenance of hand-pumps and water supply systems.

9. At present, with hundreds of thousands of hand-pumps and water supply systems needing periodical maintenance, there are no other alternatives than to strenghten the Government organizations and establish village water committees with the help of qualified NGOs, aiming at promoting people participation in operation and maintenance activities. Another solution could be to entrust private contractors to carry out regular maintenance of the water works.