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Teachers Guidebook

UN-HABITAT has developed ateachers guidebook on Human Values-based Water, Sanitationand Hygiene Classrooms.

This guidebook targets two sec-

tors: (1) The Water and Sanita-tion Service Sector, such aspublic or private utilities in ur-ban centres who wish to engagein water and sanitation educa-tion activities through dedicatedclassrooms; and (2) The Educa-tion Sector especially schoolswho wish to engage with thewater and sanitation sector onjoint education initiatives.

This guidebook provides: (a)Background and concepts of

Human Values-based Water,Sanitation and Hygiene Educa-tion (HVWSHE); (b) Informationon what a water and sanitationclassroom is, and how to estab-lish and manage a Human Val-ues-based Water and Sanitationclassroom; and (c) Overview ofthemes for HVWSHE in urbanareas and how to develop ateaching programme for aHVWSH Classroom.

and establishment of regionalmedia network in Asia under the Water for Asian Cities Pro-gramme. The objective of theproject is to raise public aware-ness through advocacy, informa-

tion and education and settingup of media network for waterand sanitation for mobilizingpolitical will as well as for build-ing the overall capacity to real-ize the development objective ofthe Water for Asian Cities Pro-gramme of supporting the imple-mentation of the Water andsanitation related MillenniumDevelopment Goals in AsianCities, specifically promotingpro-poor water and sanitationgovernance, water demand

management, increased atten-tion to environmental sanitationand income generation for thepoor linked to water supply andsanitation.

The Project aims at formulatingstrategies for public awarenesscampaign/advocacy, exchangeof information and establishinga regional media network forwater and sanitation for Waterfor Asian Cities Programme. Thebroad activities will include (a)

develop Public Awareness cam-paign in the countries/citiesparticipating in the Water for Asian Cities Programme; (b)Develop a regional media strat-egy for the Asian region; (c)Operationalize a regional me-dia strategy; (d) Organize work-shops for the Media at the coun-try/regional level; and (e) Main-tain regional media activities.

One of the key elements of the Water for Asian Cities Pro-gramme implementation is themobilization of political will andexchange of information. Mobi-lizing political commitment calls

for engaging policy level func-tionaries in the programme in acontinuous manner. Presentlyinformation exchange is facili-tated through Internet(www.unwac.org), Newsletters(Water for Cities Newsletter and WAC India Newsletter), studyvisits etc.

Improving governance in thewater and sanitation sector callsfor a willingness to change onthe part of the policymakers, thesector managers as also theindividual consumers. Suchwillingness to change comesfrom information (knowledgeand skills, e.g. about goodpractices that are working else-where), awareness (e.g. thepossible results of inaction onthe part of the policymaker andat the same time awareness ofthe responsibility on the part ofthe consumer) and a change inattitude which education canbring about. The capacity to

change through efficiency im-provement (including distributiveefficiency) is also equally impor-tant for which human resourcedevelopment and institutionalreforms and strengthening areessential. UN-HABITAT in coop-eration with International Waterand Sanitation (IRC) of the Neth-erlands has planned publicawareness campaign/advocacy

Volume II - Issue 01 November 2005

Status of Water Supply

and Sanitation in India

2

Status of Sewerage,

Sanitation and Solid

Waste Management

3

Promoting Values-based

Water and Sanitation

Education

4

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

The Centrality offreshwater in our livescannot be overesti-mated. Water hasbeen a major factorin the rise and fall ofcivilizations. It hasbeen a source of ten-

sions and fierce com-petition between na-tions that could be-come even worse ifpresent trends con-tinue. Lack of accessto water for meetingbasic needs such ashealth, hygiene andfood security under-mines developmentand inflicts enormoushardship on morethan a billion mem-bers of the humanfamily. And its qualityreveals everything,right or wrong, thatwe do in safeguard-ing the global envi-ronment.

- Kofi Annan

Secretary GeneralUnited Nations

Public Awareness Campaign planned

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PAGE - 2 November 2005

Providing water and sanitation to Indiasmillions is a challenging task. With over20 million people without access to safewater supply and 100 million without safesanitation, the sheer numbers indicate themassive effort required to provide thesebasic services to the people of the country. Just providing access, however, will notsolve the problem unless the issues of qual-ity and adequacy are also addressed. Theminimum needs should be met and thequality of the services provided should beacceptable.

A study undertaken by the National Insti-tute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) has assessedthe status of three basic services - watersupply, sanitation and municipal solidwaste management. The study covered

over 300 cities and towns in the countryincluding all metropolitan cities and se-lected Class I and Class II urban centres.The study covers all the states and unionterritories including the capitals, exceptingPatna and Gandhinagar. The study wascommissioned by the Central Public Healthand Environmental Engineering Organisa-tion (CPHEEO), Ministry of Urban Develop-ment, Government of India in 1999. Thereport has been released by NIUA in June2005. The main objectives of the studywere to (a) assess the status of water sup-

ply, sanitation and solid waste manage-ment; (b) analyse the revenue receipts andrevenue expenditure of these services; and(c) estimate the additional capital invest-ment requirements for full coverage ofpopulation by these services from 1999 to2022 (at five yearly intervals). The studycovers the physical and financial aspectsof all the three services selected for thestudy. The study gives the status of theseservices as provided by the public agen-cies and does not cover private provision.

Highlights and Main Findings

Overall, the study confirms the normalnotion that the metropolitan cities in Indiaare better provided for than the other sizeclass of urban centres. The coverage ofpopulation with basic services is higher formetropolitan cities than for other size classof urban centres. The investment levels arehigher in the metropolitan cities due tolarge concentration of population in them.This could be one of the reasons for morepeople flocking to metropolitan cities dueto better provision of basic amenities. The

Status of Water Supply and Sanitation in Urban Indiawater supply situation, though much betterin metropolitan cities at an aggregatelevel, is reasonably good in many Class Iand Class II urban centres too. The situa-tion with respect to wastewater manage-

ment is much worse in smaller urban cen-tres than in metropolitan cities. A similarsituation is obtained in respect of solidwaste management where the metropolitancities fare much better than the other sizeclass of urban centres. Financially also, themetropolitan and larger urban centres faremuch better than the smaller ones. How-ever, there are large variations in thestatus of individual urban centres withrespect to these services. Interestingly, thestudy revealed that in some cases thesmaller urban centres showed much better

service provision than others. These iso-lated instances are exceptions rather thanthe rule.

Water Supply

The overall water supply situation, whenlooked at the city level, is reasonably ade-quate in most cities and towns, the prob-lem in many cases lies in the poor distribu-tion infrastructure. The water crisis is oftenrelated to the poor distribution of waterthan the lack of water at source (e.g.Delhi). However, there are urban centreswhere water source itself is depleting and

is unable to cater to the water require-ments of the urban centres (e.g. towns ofTamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh). In mostcities there are more households than wa-ter supply connections, indicating thateither there are many shared connectionsor households depend upon public standposts. The data indicates that many house-holds have their own sources of watersupply while others complement ownsources of supply with that of the publicagency.

Unaccounted for water (UFW) data

have been the most difficult to obtain.UFW is generally an estimate worked outby the technical staff based on their per-ception of the situation. Most cities do nothave bulk meters or meters at all the usersend. This makes the task of calculatingUFW very difficult. Therefore, the figures ofUFW should be taken as the best estimatesthat could be made by the technical staffof the water-supplying agency. Smallersize towns that supply water from nearbysources or use ground water source have

indicated very small quantity of UFW.Therefore, the study indicates that the lar-ger cities have greater quantity of UFWthan smaller size class of cities.

Water Revenue Meters:A very smallpercentage of urban centres have all con-nections metered (e.g. Bangalore, Pune).About one-third of the 300 urban centrescovered do not have any metered connec-tions. In many urban centres a large per-centage of domestic connections are un-metered while in a little above one-fourthurban centres all non-domestic connectionsare also unmetered. This needs to be takenup if tariff structures are to be rationalisedand used as a deterrent to central wastageof water.

Water Tariffs:Tariff data indicates thatuniform volumetric charges and fixedcharges (ferrule based etc.) are the mostcommon methods of charging. Incrementalblock tariff is mostly used in the largercities, with a few exceptions. In many cit-ies, non-domestic connections are meteredwhile the domestic connections are un-metered. Since meters often do not work,many cities charge fixed tariff for watersupply based on the calculated consump-tion patterns.

Water Source:Most large cities dependupon surface sources for water supply,

supplementing it with ground watersources to meet the demand. However, theshare of ground water increases with adecrease in city size, with smaller sizeclass of urban centres showing greaterdependence on ground water for watersupply. The large investments required forwater treatment plants to supply waterfrom surface sources could be one reasonfor this pattern. While all metro cities usingsurface source have water treatmentplants, there is a small percentage of ur-ban centres in other size classes that use

surface water but do not have water treat-ment plants.

Institutional Management: There aremany different types of institutional ar-rangements for water supply in the urbanareas of the country. The most commonarrangement is that the capital works aredone by a state level agency and the localgovernment does the O&M. However,there are wide variations in this arrange-ment. These variations range from the statelevel agency managing the entire water

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private sector participation as well as citi-zens contribution can help provide someof the additional capital investment require-ments.

The main recommendations to improve thesystem include: (i) Rehabilitation of non-

functional sewerage system; (ii) wastewa-ter treatment to be made mandatory for allsizes of urban centres; (iii) imposing pun-ishment for pollution of land or water bodywith untreated wastewater; (iv) encouragerecycling / reuse of wastewater; (v) costrecovery mechanisms for waste water dis-posal; and (vi) sharing of best practices /successful examples of peoples participa-tion in contributing to the cost of construc-tion of sewerage system

Solid Waste Management

Municipal solid waste management is anobligatory function of the urban local gov-ernments. And this is one service that re-mains a major problem for urban centresof all sizes. The per capita waste genera-tion has a positive correlation to the sizeclass of urban centres i.e. the larger theurban centre the more the waste gener-ated. The collection efficiency of solidwaste is much better in larger cities than insmaller urban centres. This could also bedue to the motorised transportation vehi-cles deployed in larger cities. Some of thesmaller urban centres still depend on tricy-

cles and animal carts for waste collection. A factor that affects waste collection andtransportation is the maintenance of vehi-cles. Poor maintenance of fleet affectscollection and transportation efficiency. Vehicles, especially in smaller urban cen-tres, are often not replaced even whenthere is a dire need to replace them. Lackof finances for fleet replacement is a majorcause of this state of affairs.

Methods of Solid Waste Disposal

The main method of waste disposal contin-ues to be open dumping in most urban

centres. While many urban centres havelandfill sites, not all dispose their waste inthese landfill sites as sometimes the sitesare far away from the city and the trans-portation costs become prohibitive. There-fore, waste is dumped in some low-lyingareas or disposed off just outside the cityperiphery. Hospital waste, though shouldbe collected separately, is collected in acombined manner in a majority of urbancentres, including some of the metropoli-tan cities. Solid waste management is a

VOLUME II - ISSUE 01 PAGE - 3

supply system in the entire state e.g. Ra-jasthan to the urban local body performingall the tasks related to water supply as inthe case of Mumbai. Privatisation or pub-lic-private partnerships are still not verycommon in water supply with less than

one-tenth of the urban centres using privateparticipation in this service. Cost recoveryis a major concern in water supply. Whileit is possible to achieve cost-recovery inwater supply, the fact is that almost four-fifths of the urban centres are unable torecover even the O&M cost in this service.This indicates that while theoretically watercan be treated as an economic good,there are practical difficulties in implement-ing decisions on raising water tariff. Watercontinues to be treated as a social goodand even recovering O&M cost in mostcities would require political consensus

and strong Political Will. The additionalcapital investment requirements for cover-ing the entire population with water supplyin the years to come is enormous, runninginto thousands of crores of rupees. While itmay be difficult to find resources to financesuch large investments, private sector par-ticipation could be encouraged. Public-private partnerships could reduce the fi-nancial burden of public agencies to someextent and bring in some financial disci-pline into this sector. While efforts have tobe made to improve efficiency of water

supply to reduce operating costs, mainte-nance of existing assets would help inreducing new investment requirements inthe near future.

Recommendations to improve the situationinclude: (a) addressing the problems ofintra-city distribution; (b) capacity buildingin urban centres for estimation of UFW; (c)metering of connections, both for bulksupply and retail distribution; (d) tariffrationalization at regular intervals; (e)Ground water replenishment through rain-water harvesting in all urban centres; (f)capacity building of local governments to

manage water supply systems; (g) im-proved cost recovery; (h) private sectorparticipation in the sector; and (i) addi-tional capital investments through public-private partnerships.

Sewerage and Sanitation

Wastewater disposal and treatment is avery major problem in most Indian cities.Non-collection of wastewater and dis-charge of untreated wastewater into low-lying areas or various water bodies causes

severe water and land pollution problems.This situation reduces the availability ofusable water for water supply. While allthe metropolitan cities have a seweragesystem, only one third of the Class I citiesand less than one-fifth of the smaller sized

urban centres have a sewerage system.However, the coverage of population bythe sewerage system is partial in all theseurban centres.

Wastewater

Wastewater generation is calculated at aminimum of 80 per cent of water supplied.However, since people use their ownsources of water, additional amounts ofwastewater may be generated, whichhave been taken into account in the pre-sent study. Wastewater collection in mosturban centres with sewerage system usu-

ally does not exceed about two-thirds ofthat generated. However, the wastewatertreatment situation is quite alarming. Whilethe smaller sized urban centres with sewer-age system treat less than one-fourth of thewastewater generated, even the metropoli-tan cities treat only about two-fifths of thewastewater generated. Wastewater dis-posal is done both on land and in waterbody by most urban centres. Proximity towater body, local conditions and financialconstraints determine the place andmethod of wastewater disposal. Recy-cling / reuse of wastewater is practised invery few urban centres and wherever it isdone, it is mostly used for agriculture orhorticultural purposes. Recycling/ reusingwastewater will reduce the demand forfresh water, thereby also postponing thecapital investment requirements for wateraugmentation. There is no fixed mecha-nism for charging for wastewater collectionand disposal. The charging may bethrough property tax, a charge on watercloset or an additional charge on watersupplied. All urban centres do not chargefor wastewater disposal. Therefore, the

cost recovery is generally very low fromthis service with even the metro cities show-ing a very small recovery rate. The situa-tion is even worse in urban centres ofsmaller size. In most cities where the recov-ery rate has been very good, the reasonshave been either due to provision of newconnections (connection charges) or due tolevying of sewerage/ drainage tax. Theadditional capital investment required forproviding safe sanitation to all in the com-ing years are quite high. In view of this

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Editorial BoardGopal Reddy, Secretary, UADD, State Govt. of M.P

Savitur Prasad, Director, Govt. of India

S.N. Mishra, Project Director, UWSEIP, Bhopal

Debashish Bhattacharjee, ADB, India Resident Mission

Aniruddhe Mukerjee, CTA, UN-HABITAT, Bhopal

EditorKulwant Singh, CTA, UN-HABITAT, New Delhi

Promoting Values-based Water andSanitation Education

UN-HABITAT in partnership with Southeast Asian Ministers of EducationOrganisation (SEAMEO), Bangkok and the Society for Preservation of Water (SPW),Bangkok organized a Regional Planning Workshop on promoting Values-based

Water and Sanitation Education in Southeast Asian Schools in Cha-Am,Phetchaburi, Thailand from 21-24 November 2005. The participants were mainlyfrom the Ministries of Education of various countries as well as the schools and othereducational institutions. The three-day Regional Planning Workshop aimed at:

(1) Re-acquainting high officials/senior officers responsible for the management ofschool facilities, materials development and/or curriculum in the SEAMEO-Member Countries with the concept, aims and strategies adopted by SEAMEOand UN-HABITAT in promoting VBWSE in Southeast Asian schools;

(2) Taking stock of existing policies, guidelines and practices relating to VBWSE inthe primary and secondary curricula and the evaluation of water and sanitationfacilities in schools; and

(3) Mapping out modalities of collaboration in implementing the succeedingproject activities.

The workshop was inaugurated by the Director General, International Cooperationof the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam. In his keynote address henoted that the planning workshop was a positive step towards fulfilling the mandateset during 39th SEAMEO Council Conference when the Council of Ministersadopted the SEAMEO Declaration on Values-based Water Education.During the plenary session of the workshop. Mr. Wahdi Yudhi, Deputy Director,SEAMEO Secretariat gave an overview of the project and workshop. Dr. Art-ong Jumsai, Director, SPW gave an exposition of the concept of Human Values inWater, Sanitation and Hygiene Education and Angela Loraine Burrows explainedthe methodologies for VBWSHE. These were followed by country presentations bythe representatives of Cambodia, Lao PDR, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar,Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Besides these, there was also apresentation by CTA, WAC Programme on School Sanitation in India.

The workshop was then divided in two working groups. The one group addressedthe issue of developing tools for assessment of water and sanitation facilities inschools in Southeast Asian Countries and the second group dealt with the issue ofintroduction of Human Values-based Water and Sanitation Education in the Schoolcurriculum through various subjects.The final outcome of the two groups yielded the following outputs: (i) Draft surveyinstrument for evaluating water and sanitation in schools; (ii) Draft roll-out plan forfield testing/validating the survey instrument (including the reporting and packagingof the data to be generated); (iii) Common framework for the curriculum materials tobe developed; and (iv) List of learning strands and subject areas/topics to becovered in the curriculum materials.

PAGE - 4

labour intensive activity requiring adequatestaff. However, with a few exceptions, mosturban centres fall short of staff for this activity.This impacts the quality of service provided.Privatisation is much more prevalent in thisservice. Many urban centres that have usedthis arrangement have been able to reducetheir expenditure on this service. Cost recov-ery from solid waste management is extremelypoor and therefore it becomes an expenditureheavy service. Expenditure on establishment isthe biggest head of expenditure on this ser-vice. Most urban centres spend over three-fourths of their solid waste managementbudget on establishment. The additional capi-tal investment requirements worked out for thisservice in the coming years indicate an invest-ment of a couple of hundred crores per an-num. However, these figures will need to berevised taking into account the Honble Su-

preme Courts directives. As construction ofsanitary landfills is very expensive, this wouldadd considerably to the investment require-ments.

Recommendations to manage the situationinclude: (1) Three Rs of solid waste manage-ment i.e. Reduce, Reuse and Recycle must beadopted by all urban centres; (2) improveefficiency of waste collection in cities bybringing about the necessary changes in thedesign of equipment used by sanitary staff,manpower management and planning; (3)better maintenance and modernization oftransportation fleet to improve collection andtransportation efficiency; (4) discouragecrude/open dumping of waste; (5) identifylandfill sites that are usable. Encourageneighbourhood composting and recycling toreduce the quantity of waste; (6) separatecollection of hospital waste; (7) private sectorparticipation to achieve efficiency of opera-tions and cost reduction; (8) plans to improvecost recovery and peoples participation tokeep cities clean.

UN-HABITAT

Water for Asian Cities ProgrammeEP-16/17, Chandragupta Marg, Chanakyapuri

New Delhi - 110021 (India), Tel: +91-11-24104970-73

Fax: +91-11-24104961, Web: www.unwac.org

WAC Programme Project Office

E-1/191, Arera Colony, Bhopal - 462016

Madhya Pradesh, India, Tel: +91-755-2460835-36

Fax: +91-755-2460837, Email: Wac.India@unhabitat.org