Habitations, villages, and gram panchayats: local drinking water planning in rural India with a Pune district case study

Wescoat, James L.; Shah, Riddhi; Singh, Ranu; Murty, J. V. R.

doi:10.2166/washdev.2019.196

Cited by 7 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…There are also myriad smaller habitations (e.g., wadis). The dynamics among these local village levels of settlement have also been complex (Wescoat et al 2019). In general, this paper shows that they have had a strongly hierarchical structure, though history records significant instances of scale-jumping, as for example when the central state sought to connect directly with gram panchayats in the NRDWP.…”

Section: A U T H O R Accepted Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 88%

A macrohistorical geography of rural drinking water institutions in India

Wescoat

Bramhankar

Murty³

et al. 2021

Water Hist

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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

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Section: A U T H O R Accepted Manuscriptmentioning

confidence: 88%

A macrohistorical geography of rural drinking water institutions in India

Wescoat

Bramhankar

Murty³

et al. 2021

Water Hist

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…That said, research at the village scale identified several planning challenges, including complications in the meaning of the term "village", which as noted above has three main uses in India [39]. The gram panchayat is the most local level of official government in India.…”

Section: Village Scalementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In recent decades, GIS shapefiles have been prepared for revenue villages, which are indeed the only local shapefiles available on an all-India basis. Mapping was shown to be a valuable and largely untapped asset for drinking water planning, but it requires strategies for linking revenue village data with gram panchayat planning needs [39]. The third and smallest meaning of the word village refers to habitations or wadis.…”

Section: Village Scalementioning

confidence: 99%

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District Drinking Water Planning for Sustainability in Maharashtra: Between Local and Global Scales

Wescoat

Murty²

2021

Sustainability

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Sustainable rural drinking water is a widespread aim in India, and globally, from the household to district, state, and national scales. Sustainability issues in the rural drinking water sector range from increasing water demand to declining groundwater levels, premature deterioration of village schemes and services, inadequate revenues for operations and maintenance, weak capacity of water operators, frequently changing state and national policies, and destabilizing effects of climate change. This paper focuses on the special role of district-scale drinking water planning, which operates at the intersection between bottom-up water demand and top-down water programs. After surveying the challenges associated with bottom-up and top-down planning approaches, we present recent efforts to strengthen district and block drinking water planning in the state of Maharashtra. A combination of district interviews, institutional history, village surveys, GIS visualization, and planning workshops were used to advance district planning goals and methods. Results assess bottom-up processes of water demand; top-down water programs and finance; and intermediate-level planning at the district and block scales. Discussion focuses on potential improvements in district planning methods in Maharashtra.

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“…While more frequent estimates are made for drought-affected villages to provide a basis for state intervention, those figures are also estimated rather than measured. Other relevant data, e.g., water quality, are reported at the habitation rather than the village level which has limited their use in geographic information system (GIS) mapping (see Wescoat et al, 2019). Most importantly for this paper, basic parameters of community water service are not collected.…”

Section: The Evolving Situation In Indiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Analyzing rural drinking water services for district planning in Maharashtra, India

et al. 2019

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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.

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Habitations, villages, and gram panchayats: local drinking water planning in rural India with a Pune district case study

Cited by 7 publications

References 2 publications

A macrohistorical geography of rural drinking water institutions in India

A macrohistorical geography of rural drinking water institutions in India

District Drinking Water Planning for Sustainability in Maharashtra: Between Local and Global Scales

Analyzing rural drinking water services for district planning in Maharashtra, India

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