India has made good progress toward meeting basic standards of access to safe drinking water, but improved planning methods are needed to prioritize different levels and types of water service needs for public investment. This paper presents a planning approach for collecting, analyzing, and mapping drinking water service data at the village, block, and district levels in Pune district, Maharashtra, India. The planning approach created a mobile application for data collection by gram sevaks at the village level. It employed ranking methods developed with district officers to prioritize villages with the greatest needs, cluster analysis to distinguish different types of needs, and geographic information system (GIS) mapping to visualize the spatial distribution of those needs. This analysis shows that there are high levels of spatial heterogeneity in water services within, as well as between, blocks but also that there are broad patterns of priorities for planning and policy purposes. These priorities include water service needs in the Western Ghats, a combination of water source and service needs in dissected plateau lands, source strengthening in the eastern plains, and local hot spots in peri-urban areas. Based on this Pune district case study, the Government of Maharashtra is testing the approach in five additional districts.

Improving rural drinking water services at the village level is a high priority in India. The National Rural Drinking Water Program (NRDWP) calls for village drinking water plans on an annual basis. However, planning data analysis and mapping are complicated by the different levels of local settlement that are involved. The aims of this paper are: first, to review how the term ‘village’ has come to refer to three different types of settlement for planning purposes in India; second, to show how each settlement type has different water data and Geographic Information System (GIS) map coverage; and third, to identify practical strategies for using these different data and mapping resources to develop rural drinking water plans. We address the first objective through a brief historical review of local government administration and drinking water database development in India. Challenges of data analysis and mapping are demonstrated through a case study of Pune district in Maharashtra. This challenge led to the identification of six practical strategies for coordinating the analysis of drinking water data and GIS mapping for planning purposes.

India has a long history of policies that aim to improve rural drinking water services, in part through decentralization that faces deeply rooted institutional challenges. These include debates about: the duty of the state to provide rural drinking water supply; tension over the role of central, state, and local governments; and frequent changes in policy and senior public officials that disrupt long-term implementation. Some water governance theorists have described policymaking in this context as a pragmatic process of bricolage, that is, of piecing together practical opportunities for improvement where possible. This paper takes a macrohistorical geographic approach to these institutional problems, with an emphasis on northern India. It shows that ancient sources dating back to the Arthashastra have underscored the role of the state in developing water supplies for the people. Subsequent regimes have argued for various combinations of centralized and local responsibility. We show that frequent rotation of senior public officials was systematized in the 16 th century Mughal empire. Changing roles of India's five levels of center, state, district, block, and village government have a half-millennium-long history, evolving through dramatically different Mughal, Mahratta, colonial, and post-colonial contexts. Devolution policies were frequently changed in the colonial period. Independence in

Districts across India are progressing toward the national Jal Jeevan Mission goal of piped water supply and 100% Functional Household Tap Connections (FHTC) for all by 2024. While state and national data monitor progress toward tap water connection coverage, the functionality and sustainability of those piped water supplies are less clear. This study presents a Sustainability Planning Framework to assess rural drinking water conditions and needs at the village, block, and district scales. It employs a mobile app to survey five key aspects of sustainability: source water sustainability, water service sustainability, operations and maintenance financial sustainability, village institutional capacity, and asset management. Ordinal scores for these sustainability variables are analyzed and interpreted though GIS mapping to identify locations and types of village support needed. Scores are aggregated to create an overall village drinking water sustainability index. Important hydroclimatic, geomorphological, and socio-economic correlates of the drinking water sustainability index are also examined. This framework and methods can help districts in Maharashtra and other states analyze drinking water services, plan future investments, and make policy adjustments to ensure sustainability.