SDG-6: Safe drinking water for all

Availability of safe drinking water has remained a long-pending issue in the country. A sizeable percentage of population across India continues to draw water from unsafe sources for drinking and other household requirements. We live in a world where millions of people – the majority of them children – die every year from diseases that are associated with non-availability of safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene. According to an estimate made by UN, a quarter of the world’s population is likely to live in countries affected by chronic or recurring shortages of water by the end of 2050. Only about two and a half billion people have gained access to improved drinking water sources across the globe since 1990. In comparison to that about 663 million people are still without any kind of access to safe drinking water and facilities for sanitation. In a span of a quarter of a century between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of the global population using an improved drinking water source has increased from 76% to about 91%. But despite that nearly 1,000 children die each day in this world due to diarrhoeal diseases that are water and sanitation-related, and are indeed preventable.

The country has an ambitious National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) – a centrally-sponsored scheme – which is aimed at providing every person in rural India with adequate safe water for drinking, cooking and other domestic basic needs on a sustainable basis. Safe water is to be readily and conveniently accessible at all times and in all situations and therefore, the scheme focuses on the creation of the infrastructure. This has resulted in the provision of significant additional resources to the sector and for the development of infrastructure and capacities for the successful operation of drinking water supply schemes in rural areas.

Going by government data, a little over 78 per cent of habitations in rural India have been covered under NRDWP. The programme has been however marred by various instances of slip-backs. The annual report of the ministry of drinking water and sanitation for 2017-18 has attributed this to (i) depletion of ground-water levels due to excessive extraction by competitive sectors such as agriculture and industry, (ii) reduction of water bodies and storage capacity due to silting, (iii) successive droughts and inconsistent rains, and (iv) pollution of water bodies because of increased use of pesticides/fertilizer and effluent from industries.

The report has also said that out of a little over 1,22,000 rural habitations in the eight North-eastern states, only about 66,000 have been fully covered under the NRDWP till the end of 2017, while another lot of about 43,000 rural habitations have been only partially covered. The government has set a target of making 2,134 such habitations “fully covered” by the end of 2017-2018, but the ground reality is that it is far behind the target.

Quality of drinking water too has remained a major issue, especially in Assam. The government report says there were as many as 662 “quality-affected villages” in Assam during 2017-18. In Tripura the figure stood at 524, while there were 16 such villages in Nagaland and 10 in Meghalaya. Details of the remaining North-eastern states were not shown in it.

One key factor responsible for non-availability of safe drinking water in villages across India is the lack of community participation and community ownership of the projects. According to a World Bank report, the key issue was that systems were designed and constructed by state agencies with little participation from local communities. It said that while people lacked a sense of ownership, maintenance was neglected. Consumers also treated water as a right to be provided free-of-cost by the government, making systems financially unsustainable.

Clean or safe water is a critical input for survival, and its absence can causes serious issues related to the health, food security, and livelihoods of families across the world. Although this planet has sufficient fresh water to achieve a regular and clean water supply for all, the UN has blamed bad economics and poor infrastructure for the prevailing situation. Droughts have afflicted some of the world’s poorest countries in the recent years, thus further worsening hunger and malnutrition.

It is also a fact that floods and other water-related disasters account for about 70% of all deaths that are related to natural disasters. Global goals and national priorities on reliable energy, economic growth, resilient infrastructure, sustainable industrialisation, consumption and production, and food security, are all inextricably linked to a sustainable supply of clean water. Hydropower is one of the most crucial and widely-used renewable sources of energy and as of 2011, represented 16% of total electricity production worldwide.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) have committed the international community to expand international cooperation and capacity building on water and sanitation related activities and programmes, and also to support local communities in improving water and sanitation management. Through Goal 6 of the SDG, the countries of the world have resolved to achieve universal access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation and hygiene to all in the next 15 years.