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Policy Research Working Paper 8919
The Next Frontier in Water Supply Service Delivery
An Assessment of the Performance of Water Sector Service Providers in Pourashavas in Bangladesh
Aroha BahugunaLuis Alberto Andres
George JosephMainul Huq
Water Global PracticeJune 2019
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Produced by the Research Support Team
Abstract
The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.
Policy Research Working Paper 8919
Using data from the International Benchmarking Net-work for Water and Sanitation Utilities, this paper on the water sector in pourashavas (municipalities) in Bangla-desh provides an analysis of the trends in the water sector development over 2010–16. The main purpose of the paper is to examine the average performance of the water sector providers in the pourashavas to encourage conver-sation on identifying and addressing deficiencies in service
performance in comparison with that in the rest of Ban-gladesh and the world. This analysis finds that although pourashavas perform on the lower end of the spectrum compared with the rest of Bangladesh on many indicators, the top 20 percent of the pourashavas are globally compet-itive on indicators of staff productivity, cost coverage, and daily per capita consumption of water.
This paper is a product of the Water Global Practice. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://www.worldbank.org/prwp. The authors may be contacted at [email protected].
The Next Frontier in Water Supply Service Delivery:
An Assessment of the Performance of Water Sector Service Providers in
Pourashavas in Bangladesh Aroha. Bahuguna; Luis. Alberto Andres; George. Joseph; and Mainul. Huq1
JEL Codes: L90, L95, L25
Key Words; Public utilities, Water utilities, urban, performance, Bangladesh
1 Corresponding author; George Joseph (Global Water Practice, The World Bank, Washington DC 20433, USA [email protected]), Aroha Bahuguna (Water Global Practice, The World Bank, Washington DC 20433, USA [email protected]) , Luis Alberto Andres ( Water Global Practice, The World Bank, Washington DC 20433 USA, [email protected]), Mainul Huq ( Independent Consultant, World Bank, Dhaka , Bangladesh, [email protected])
This work was made possible by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency as part of the WASH Poverty Diagnostics Initiative. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Bank, its Board of Executive Directors, or the governments they represent.
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The Next Frontier in Water Supply Service Delivery:
An Assessment of the Performance of Water Sector Service Providers in
Pourashavas in Bangladesh Aroha. Bahuguna; Luis. Alberto Andres; George. Joseph; and Mainul. Huq
Background Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, with over 163 million people living in an area of 147,570 km with the overall population growth rate of about 1.2 percent.2 However, the population in urban areas has grown over 3.5 percent on average,3 and the total urban population in Bangladesh was estimated to be about 57 million in 2016.4 Bangladesh is divided into eight administrative divisions and 64 districts. There are 491 sub‐district units (Upazilas) and 4,554 Union Parishads (UPs), the lowest tier of government in rural areas.5 In urban areas, there are two types of local governments: 11 City Corporations for metropolitan and larger cities; and 329 smaller municipalities (pourashavas, hereinafter). The large metropolitan cities like Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna, and Rajshahi have populations between 0.84 million and 17.6 million6; the smaller City Corporations have populations between 0.3 million and 0.5 million; and the 329 pourashavas have populations between less than 0.01 million and 0.5 million.7
While Dhaka is still the center of the country’s economy, the garment industry, which is its most important industry, has been moving out to the peri‐urban areas in recent years,8 leading to a population influx in these areas. Moreover, as Dhaka and Chittagong have started to exhibit the adverse impact of congestion and failing infrastructures, pourashavas have experienced accelerated population growth.9 An important driver of the migration to pourashavas is that the potential migrants do not have to move too far from their ancestral homes, and their existing support networks remain useful in these new locations. Without investment in basic urban services, the increasing pressure of urban growth can lead to deterioration in quality of services in these areas.
2 (The World Bank, 2017) 3 (Central Intelligence Agency, 2017) 4 (The World Bank, 2017) 5 (Bangladesh Cabinet Division, 2019) 6 (Central Intelligence Agency, 2017) 7 (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, 2017) 8 (Burke, 2014) 9 (Khan Chandan, 2017)
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Piped water supply systems in the pourashavas constitute a part of crucial infrastructure which supports an improved standard of living for migrants in urban areas. However, only 136 of the 329 pourashavas provide piped water supply services.10 These pourashavas are legally responsible for providing water supply services to the people, including the poor within their jurisdiction. Hence, an assessment of the performance of pourashavas providing this service is an important precursor to any policy prescription to improve the service.
Water sector institutional framework
The Local Government Division (LGD) of the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development, and Cooperatives (MoLGRD&C) has responsibility for the water and sanitation sector planning and strategic development at the national level.
The technical support agencies – The Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE) and the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED), and water service providers – Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (WASAs), City Corporations, and pourashavas – are under the administrative control of the LGD. The WASAs are dedicated bodies created for providing water supply, sewerage, and drainage services in the cities of Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, and Khulna. The DPHE is responsible for implementing publicly funded water supply projects in all rural areas and urban areas outside the WASAs. This includes the 11 City Corporations and the 329 pourashavas. The LGED is responsible for implementing urban infrastructure in the pourashavas.
DPHE is responsible for investments in publicly‐funded water supply systems while all operations and maintenance responsibility falls upon the pourashavas along with the day‐to‐day operations of the water distribution systems. Pourashavas also carry out small extensions of the piped water system when possible. Following the Local Government (Amendment) Act, 2010, local government institutions such as the pourashavas in urban areas are expected to take on greater responsibilities for water supply and sanitation. However, weak technical and financial capacities in the pourashavas keep the DPHE as the main agency responsible for the design and implementation of piped water supply, while handing over the responsibility for operations and maintenance to the pourashavas. This leads to lack of ownership among the pourashavas resulting in poor service delivery.
Accelerated urbanization, fewer investment projects in general for municipalities outside the large cities, institutional constraints in expanding water supply to all, and fiscal constraints due to poor collection are some of the challenges faced by urban water service providers. This paper examines the trends in performance outcomes of pourashavas and investigates the areas where they are performing especially poorly.
Data and Methodology
For this report, a sample of pourashavas, WASAs, and city corporations available from IBNET for the period 2011‐2016 was analyzed on various self‐reported indicators. In 2016, 48 pourashavas, four WASAs and five city corporations (a total of 57 service providers) reported their data compared to 2010 when 22 pourashavas, four WASAs and three City Corporations (a total of 29 service providers) reported their data. The sample of pourashavas analyzed are mainly Class A pourashavas with a few Class B pourashavas. Class A pourashavas are those with income of more than BDT 6 million (~US$ 73,000), class B are those with income more than BDT 2.5 million (~US$ 30,000) and up to BDT 6 million, and class C are those with income more than BDT 1 million (~US$ 12,000) and up to BDT 2.5 million.11 Most service providers did not
10 (Department of Public Health Engineering, n.d.) 11 (Ministry of Local Government Rural Development & Cooperatives, 2017)
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report their data in all the years under analysis, leading to missing data in a non‐random way. Thus, arriving at the average performance in a year and comparing it to another year can be misleading given the difference in the composition of the service providers in the two years. The methodology to compute the trends in this paper uses a nested panel approach, such that “balanced panels” for two consecutive years are nested together across the years.12 13
Additionally, a survey of pourashava officials and subscribers in 80 randomly chosen pourashavas provided qualitative data on water supply services as a means to investigate the quality of services to poorer areas. The survey enquired about the number of hours of water supply per day and the number of hours elapsed between the lodging of a complaint and the response of the water supply department of the pourashava. There were 61 class A, 17 class B, and 2 class C pourashavas in the sample.
The paper qualitatively analyzes the performance of pourashavas compared to the performance of the rest of Bangladesh, i.e. the WASAs (Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, and Khulna) and five city corporations (Comilla, Rangpur, Sylhet, Barisal, and Gazipur) and global service provider performance. In addition, the paper also analyzes the performance levels among the pourashavas to provide the “aspirational” level for the lower performing pourashavas to benchmark against the better performing ones.
Pourashava Performance Indicators
Pourashavas were measured on several indicators to benchmark their performance against that of the WASAs and city corporations and the performance of global service providers. These indicators are grouped into three categories – efficiency, availability, and financial sustainability, as described below.
1. Efficiency a. Non‐revenue water (NRW): The difference between water supplied and water sold as a
percentage of the former. This indicator helps assess the loss of saleable water. b. Staff productivity: The number of connections per employee. A higher number suggests a
greater level of staff efficiency. 2. Availability
a. Quantity: Water consumption in liters per person per day (lpcd). Higher levels of consumption imply improved service delivery.
b. Continuity: The average number of hours of service per day. 3. Financial Sustainability
a. Operational cost recovery: The ratio between operating revenues and operating costs. A ratio greater than 1 implies that a service provider is able to recover its costs and generate profits.
b. Average revenue: Operational revenue per cubic meter of water sold. c. Collection ratio: Cash income as a percentage of billed operational revenue.
The paper draws upon the data from the IBNET database to assess the efficiency, availability, and financial sustainability of the pourashavas. The key variables described above are summarized in Table 1 below for the years 2010 and 2016.
12 (Andres L. A., 2005) 13 (Andres, Guasch, Haven, & Foster, 2008)
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Table 1: Summary Performance Indicator Statistics for Pourashavas (mean weighted by number of
connections)
Source: Author calculations based on IBNET data
Pourashavas performed poorly when compared with global averages and with the WASAs and city corporations, except on indicators of efficiency.
Efficiency: Pourashavas outperformed the WASAs and five city corporations on NRW. NRW in the pourashavas was 21.9 percent in 2010, which further decreased to 18.4 percent in 2016 compared to an NRW of 23 percent in 2016 for WASAs and city corporations during this period. Pourashavas also had lower NRW compared to the global average NRW, which was above 35 percent. While it is tempting to conclude that pourashavas performed well on this indicator, the low metering rates in the pourashavas may point to inaccurate measurement of NRW.
While staff productivity was higher globally at above 300 connections per employee throughout 2010‐2016, pourashavas performed better than the WASAs and city corporations during the period. Globally, there were more than 300 connections per employee throughout the period, while pourashavas had 163 connections per employee in 2016 increasing 26 percent from 2010. On the other hand, the average for WASAs and city corporations in 2016 was consistently lower than the pourashavas throughout the period and was only 101 connections per employee in 2016.
Availability: Pourashavas performed poorly on indicators of availability – quantity of water supplied per person per day and duration of supply. Both global and WASA and city corporation averages performed better than the pourashavas. Consumption of water per person per day in the pourashavas was between 86 and 90 lpcd during 2010‐2016 compared to 100‐120 lpcd in the same period among the WASAs and city corporations. Global consumption of water was around 161‐165 lpcd for the same period. In terms of continuity, pourashavas had an average duration of 9 hours of water supply service for the period under review compared to 19 hours for WASAs and city corporations and 23 hours globally.
Financial sustainability: On average, service providers in Bangladesh were able to cover their costs from their revenues. Cost coverage in pourashavas was greater than 1 for the entire period 2010‐2016, although it steadily decreased from 1.45 in 2010 to 1.17 in 2016. Similarly, although higher, the cost coverage for the WASAs and city corporations decreased from 1.43 in 2010 to 1.31 in 2016. On the other hand, global cost coverage increased from 1.25 in 2010 to 1.33 in 2016.
Average revenues and unit costs were very low in Bangladesh compared with global averages. Average revenues in Pourashavas increased slightly from US$ 0.09/m3 of water sold in 2010 to US$ 0.10/m3 of water sold in 2016. Similarly, average revenue for the WASAs and city corporations increased from US$ 0.14/m3 of water sold in 2010 to US$ 0.18/m3 of water sold in 2016. Meanwhile, for the same period global average revenues were much higher at US$ 1.28/m3 in 2016. Unit costs were also low in the
IndicatorsNumber of
Observations2010 2016
% Δ 2010‐
2016Std. Dev. Min Max
Non‐Revenue Water (%) 48 22 18 ‐16% 10.95 3.23 51.82
Staff productivity (Connections/Staff) 48 129 163 26% 54.02 39.00 275.00
Water Consumption (lpcd) 43 86 88 2% 32.03 30.80 209.85
Continuity of services (hours/day of water supply) 48 8.7 9.3 7% 5.46 0.70 24.00
Cost Coverage (ratio) 48 1.46 1.17 ‐20% 0.35 0.40 2.34
Average Revenue (US$/m3 of water sold) 46 0.09 0.10 12% 0.05 0.02 0.21
Unit Cost (US$/m3 of water produced) 47 0.05 0.07 63% 0.04 0.01 0.17
Collection rate (%) 48 68 80 19% 14.59 37.21 121.38
Metering rate (%) 48 28 21 ‐25% 33.96 ‐ 100.00
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pourashavas, increasing from US$ 0.05/m3 of water produced in 2010 to US$ 0.07/m3 of water produced in 2016. For the WASAs and city corporations, unit costs increased from US$ 0.07/m3 to US$ 0.10/m3 of water produced in the same period compared to the global cost of US$ 0.55/m3 in 2010 which increased to US$ 0.65/m3 of water produced in 2016.
Collection rates for the pourashavas were the lowest – although almost catching up to the average WASA and city corporation collection rate in 2016. The rate increased from 68 percent in 2010 to 80 percent in 2016 for the pourashavas, compared to an increase from 71 percent to 84 percent in the same period among the WASAs and city corporations. Globally the collection rate was almost 90 percent in 2010, increasing further to 95 percent in 2016.
Metering in the pourashavas was very low and decreased in the period analyzed – from 28 percent in 2010 to 21 percent in 2016. Among the WASAs and city corporations, metering rates increased during the period from 65 percent in 2010 to 76 percent in 2016, compared to global metering rates of 80 percent in 2010 and 86 percent in 2016.
Figure 1: Performance of Pourashavas Compared to WASAs and City Corporations and the World
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Source: Authors’ calculations based on IBNET data.
Note: i) Weighted by number of connections; ii) Changes are computed based on the same composition of service providers in
two consecutive years; iii) the bold lines are based on data from at least 20 service providers per year; the dashed lines for the
WASAs and city corporations are based on least five but less than 10 datapoints, while the dashed and dotted line (metering) is
based on two datapoints.
Survey on Water Supply Service Performance in Pourashavas
A qualitative survey was also undertaken in 80 pourashavas that were at least partially equipped with piped water supply systems, on the hours of service and response time to complaints by type of neighborhoods. These 80 poursashavas do not entirely overlap with those from the IBNET database. This was done to assess whether pourashavas showed clear preference for richer and powerful neighborhoods over poorer ones when it comes to providing service. For the purpose of this survey, the neighborhoods were divided into four categories based on perception: i) relatively well‐off areas (richer neighborhoods);
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ii) areas where many government officials live (government neighborhoods); iii) poor areas close to the center of the town (poor central neighborhoods) and; iv) poor areas not in the center of the town (poor peripheral neighborhoods). The center of the town was determined based on the level of development and commercial activities. One representative sample was chosen from each of these categories in each pourashava. The enumerators interviewed a variety of officials and subscribers of the water supply systems from each pourashava. During the identification process of the neighborhoods, it was found that some towns did not have any government officials living in them. As a result, no neighborhood could be labeled as a government neighborhood in those towns.
Complaint and Response
Once a complaint regarding water supply was lodged, government neighborhoods in general received the fastest attention followed by the richer neighborhoods. The poor neighborhoods always got the lowest priority in turnaround time for complaints regardless of their location in the periphery or the center. Except in three pourashavas, the time to respond to complaints from poorer neighborhoods was invariably much longer compared to that from the richer or government neighborhoods in the pourashava. The average response time for the government neighborhoods was 15 hours, while that for the richer neighborhoods was 23 hours, and that for the poor central neighborhoods was 39 hours.
As shown in figure 2, only 17 percent of pourashavas (12 of 71) responded to complaints from a poor neighborhood in less than or equal to three hours. Interestingly, although poor neighborhoods not in the center also had long wait times, they were more likely to receive quicker response than those in the center. Thirty‐two percent of pourashavas (24 of 76) responded within three hours to richer neighborhoods, while 44 percent of pourashavas (31 of 70) responded to complaints from government neighborhoods in the same time frame. In contrast, poor neighborhoods in the center in more than half of the pourashavas (36 of 71) were more likely to have to wait at least a day before their complaints were addressed. Of the 10 pourashavas that responded within three hours to every neighborhood, eight were located in the western part of the country, which is comparatively poorer than the eastern and central parts of the country.
Figure 2: Complaint Response Time, by Neighborhood
Supply Hour and Water Pressure
All neighborhoods received almost similar hours of water supply service ‐ poor neighborhoods regardless of location received around six hours of service compared to rich neighborhoods at 6.6 hours and
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government neighborhoods at 6.8 hours. However, the water pumps in most cases seemed to be located in the better off neighborhoods. The poorer areas were located at the end of the distribution system and therefore experienced low water pressure.
While very few neighborhoods received 24 hours of water supply, the percentage was slightly higher in the government (4 of 71) and rich neighborhoods (5 of 76) compared to the poor neighborhoods. Moreover, the poor neighborhoods were more likely to receive less than five hours of water supply than other neighborhoods.
Figure 3: Hours of Water Supply
Pourashava Performance of the Top versus Bottom 20 Percent
The average performance indicators mask variations among the pourashavas in Bangladesh. To uncover these variations, pourashavas were divided into the following three categories based on their average performance across all years for each of the indicators. For the computation of this average, a longer period of 2007‐2016 was taken to ensure that all available data for a given pourashava were considered. Hence, the composition of pourashavas may vary for the three groups across each indicator. However, the reporting period is still 2010‐2016. Because the top 20 percent and bottom 20 percent groups have fewer pourashavas by construction and the threshold number is not met in the earlier years when fewer pourashavas reported their data, the performance trend for most indicators for these two groups was reported for a shorter period of time.
i) The Top 20 Percent: pourashavas whose average indicator performance for the period 2007‐2016 was greater than the 80th percentile (or less than the 20th percentile in case of NRW);
ii) The Middle 60 Percent: pourashavas whose average performance was between the 20th and the 80th percentile for an indicator for 2007‐2016; and
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iii) The Bottom 20 Percent: pourashavas whose average indicator performance was less than the 20th percentile (or greater than the 80th percentile in case of NRW) for 2007 ‐ 2016.
Based on the composition of pourashavas across each of the above groups for each of the indicators, a list of the best performing pourashavas that are in the top 20 percent for at least two indicators was drawn. Similarly, a list of pourashavas that are in the bottom 20 percent for at least two indicators was compiled for comparison.
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Table 2a: Top 11 pourashavas based on the average of scores for each indicator
Table 2b: Bottom 10 pourashavas based on the average of scores for each indicator
Utility City District Division PopulationPoverty
rateClass NRW
Cost
Coverage
Staff
Productivity Consumption
Average
Revenue
Unit
Cost
Collection
Rate
Continuity
Metering
Amtali Puorashava Amtali Barguna Barisal 17,311.00 11.96 A 16.83 2.15 197.19 216.80 0.13 0.05 74.30 24.00 49.39
PatP, Patuakahali Pourashava Barisal Patuakhali Barisal 65,000.00 23.32 A 14.09 1.33 85.57 71.47 0.14 0.10 97.06 24.00 100.00
ShaP, Shahrasti Pourashava Shahrasti Chandpur Chittagong 28,287.00 29.53 A 20.00 1.75 275.00 0.27 0.16 79.80 4.00
Faridpur Faridpur Faridpur Dhaka 121,632.00 21.35 A 21.92 1.53 198.66 91.95 0.17 0.09 62.71 8.00
Chopou, Chowmuhani Chowmuhani Noakhali Chittagong 80,001.00 1.83 A 11.39 1.51 125.09 91.33 0.13 0.08 73.17 9.33
HP. Hajigonj HP. Hajigonj Chandpur Chittagong 63,892.00 32.54 A 9.68 1.18 158.33 80.75 0.08 0.06 90.32 14.50
BarP, Barguna Barguna Barguna Barisal 32,235.00 9.89 A 28.02 1.10 222.97 66.33 0.13 0.07 92.81 14.83
JPH, Joypurhat Joypurhat Joypurhat Rajshahi 69,033.00 13.00 A 16.85 1.21 154.72 143.36 0.06 0.04 88.65 10.67 57.81
Netrakona, Netrakona Pourashava Netrakona Pourashava Netrakona Dhaka 91,936.00 16.16 A 25.38 0.98 141.67 204.14 0.10 0.08 86.91 6.00 74.70
GP. Gopalgong GP. Gopalgong Gopalganj Dhaka 51,346.00 25.20 A 12.21 0.97 140.76 56.98 0.17 0.16 90.27 2.14
Isdp, Ishwardi Ishwardi Pabna Rajshahi 66,255.00 13.23 A 10.72 0.94 203.64 31.42 0.16 0.13 75.42 6.00
Average (2007‐2016)
Utility City District Division PopulationPoverty
rateClass NRW
Cost
Coverage
Staff
Productivity Consumption
Average
Revenue
Unit
Cost
Collection
Rate
Continuity
Metering
Mat Paura, Matlab Pourashava Matlab Pourashava Chandpur Chittagong 59286 32.38 B 9.01 1.27 80.48 0.06 0.04 79.80 4.00
MuP. Munshiganj . MuP. Munshiganj . Munshiganj Dhaka 70674 15.05 A 12.56 1.41 93.49 60.75 0.10 0.06 75.24 4.00 0.41
Rajbari Rajbari Rajbari Dhaka 56313 23.05 A 14.00 0.63 113.22 98.74 0.05 0.07 71.67 5.00
NPP. Noapara NPP. Noapara Jessore Khulna 85856 15.9 A 34.69 0.73 112.78 82.33 0.06 0.05 83.47 8.75
BheP, Bheramara Pourashava Kushtia Kushtia Khulna 22124 0.79 B 22.78 0.56 119.05 103.62 0.06 0.09 47.29 0.67
Chargat Pourashava Charghat Rajshahi Rajshahi 38409 16.77 B 14.48 0.97 135.56 78.07 0.09 0.08 69.76 4.50
LMH. Lalmonirhat LMH. Lalmonirhat Lalmonirhat Rangpur 60322 15.1 A 35.22 1.48 151.23 59.73 0.06 0.03 59.90 10.00
Bogra, Bogra Bogra Bogra Rajshahi 350397 9.08 A 8.28 1.50 124.60 56.91 0.05 0.03 35.33 2.50
JP. Jamalpur Jamalpur Jamalpur Dhaka 142764 32.66 A 6.08 0.94 151.38 54.30 0.02 0.02 68.08 5.00
Bhariab, Bhariab Pourashava Bhariab Pourashava Kishoreganj Dhaka 118992 15.44 A 24.44 0.66 36.64 41.00 0.03 0.03 82.24 5.33
Average (2007‐2016)
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Non‐revenue water for the top 20 percent of the pourashavas was less than 15 percent for the period 2014‐2016, with the average at 11 percent in 2016. In comparison, pourashavas in the bottom 20 percent had more than 30 percent NRW for the period 2011‐2016, with NRW in 2016 at 34 percent. For the middle 60 percent of the pourashavas, the NRW decreased from 25 percent in 2010 to 14.4 percent in 2016.
Staff productivity was above 200 in the period 2013‐2016 for the top 20 percent of pourashavas, averaging at 228 connections per employee in 2016, while those in the bottom 20 percent had less than 100 connections for 2014‐2016, with an average of 94 connections per employee in 2016. The pourashavas in the middle 60 percent had 138 connections per employee in 2016 compared to 120 connections per employee in 2010.
Consumption of water per person per day was constant at about 157‐160 lpcd for the top 20 percent pourashavas during 2013‐2016 compared to about 48 lpcd for the bottom 20 percent of pourashavas in 2012‐2016. The middle 60 percent of pourashavas showed an increase in consumption from 75 lpcd in 2010 to 82 lpcd in 2016.
Continuity or the duration of water supply services was quite low for all three groups. Even among the top 20 percent of pourashavas, continuity was less than 17 hours during 2013‐2016. Among the middle 60 percent of the pourashavas, the average duration of supply was around seven hours during 2010‐2016, and the bottom 20 percent of pourashavas had an average of around three hours of supply throughout 2011‐2016.
The cost recovery ratio was more than one, although decreasing for both the middle 60 percent and top 20 percent for the period under review from 2010 to 2016 – with an average of 1.16 in 2016 for the middle 60 percent and 1.68 for the top 20 percent in the same year. The bottom 20 percent of pourashavas had a cost recovery ratio of 1.04 in 2013 which decreased to 0.74 in 2016.
As noted earlier, average revenue in Bangladesh was low overall, with the middle 60 percent of the pourashavas having an average revenue of less than 10 cents in the period 2010‐2016, averaging at US$ 0.09/m3 of water sold in 2016. The bottom 20 percent had an average of US$ 0.03/m3 of water sold in the period 2013‐2016. In comparison, the top 20 percent had a slightly higher average revenue of US$ 0.14/m3 of water sold in 2011 that increased to US$ 0.17/m3 of water sold in 2016.
Unit costs for the middle 60 percent of pourashavas were on average around US$ 0.05 during 2010‐2016, increasing to US$ 0.07/m3 in 2016 from US$ 0.05/m3 of water produced in 2010. The top 20 percent of pourashavas incurred US$ 0.12/m3 of water produced in 2016 compared to US$ 0.03/m3 of water produced incurred by the bottom 20 percent of pourashavas.
The collection rate for the bottom 20 percent was less than 60 percent during the period 2012‐2016, increasing from 47 percent in 2012 to 58 percent in 2016. In comparison, the top 20 percent of pourashavas had collection rate over 90 percent during 2013‐2016, increasing from 90 percent in 2013 to 93 percent in 2016. The middle 60 percent of pourashavas showed an increase from 78 percent in 2010 to 83 percent in 2016.
Most pourashavas did not provide data on metering rates. Thus, while the top 20 percent of the pourashavas had 76 percent metering rate in 2016, the rest of the pourashavas had zero or close to zero metering.
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Figure 4: Top 20 Percent v. Bottom 20 Percent Performers
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Source: Authors’ calculations based on IBNET data.
Note: i) Based on unweighted observations; ii) Changes are computed based on the same composition of service providers in
two consecutive years; iii) and the bold lines are based on at least ten datapoints and the dashed lines are based on at least five
but less than ten datapoints; the dashed and dotted lines are based on less than five datapoints.
Conclusion
The performance of the pourashavas was poor during the period 2010‐2016. While the operational efficiency of the average pourashava was better than the WASAs and City Corporations, and they outperformed even the global service providers in managing their non‐revenue water, they did not perform as well in terms of availability and financial sustainability indicators. The availability of water in liters per capita per day was especially low in pourashavas at around 90 lpcd and less than 10 hours of supply per day. The collection rate was also quite low and could be improved in Bangladesh overall. Comparing the performance among pourashavas, it appears that the top performers in the respective indicators function as well as, if not better than, the rest of Bangladesh and average global service providers. However, the small number of observations in the top and bottom 20 percent makes it difficult to arrive at any conclusive answer.
Overall, this analysis points to areas of further enquiry to improve service provider performance by taking into account variables like investment, subsidy received from the government and variables on institutional structure of the service provider. However, it is clear that urban planning will need to consider improved water supply services and apply a renewed focus on pourashavas to deliver this service.
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