Report: Water Towers funded by Charity Water - Phase 1

Building household toilets and bathing rooms (shower stalls) for each family in the village, followed by establishing water source, construction of overhead water tank, and laying pipes for running water to each kitchen, toilet & bathing room.

The project began by building household toilets and bathing rooms (shower stalls) for each family in the village. Every village is required to raise on average a corpus fund of Rs. 1000 per family; of which the interest is used to extend the same facilities to new households as the village grows. This is then followed by establishing the water source, construction of an overhead water tank, and laying the pipes for running water to each kitchen, toilet and bathing room in the village. A lot of effort goes into motivating men, women and children to use and maintain the toilets appropriately. Good hygienic habits are taught: hand washing and nail cutting and maintaining the cleanliness of village surroundings. At the same time Gram Vikas builds the capacities of the village institution to manage their sanitation and water supply systems.

Gram Vikas leverages funds from the government to establish piped water supply in villages. The funds are made directly available to village committees who then implement the water supply project with technical assistance from Gram Vikas. However, recent changes in government policies have led to greater control of the funds and implementation by the departments, leading to unusual delays. Many villages have been waiting for nearly two years with little hope of change in government policy, and therefore unable to construct their water supply system. This project in collaboration with Charity:Water, Gram Vikas, was initiated in April 2008 to construct 14 overhead water tanks and the necessary distribution lines, in 14 remote villages across Orissa, where the toilets and bathing rooms have already been constructed and the kitchen taps have been installed.

To ensure the long-term sustainability of the project, a Village Executive Committee (VEC) is established, comprising of an equal number of men and women to manage the project after Gram Vikas’ withdrawal. To aid the committee, members of the VEC are trained in various areas such as leadership and bookkeeping.
The committee is responsible for the day-to-day implementation and functioning of the water and sanitation project. They also draw up norms and rules in consultation with the general assembly of the village with regard to village cleanliness, use of toilets, keeping the toilets clean, and control wastage of water.

As of March 2009, not every water tower was complete, especially in terms of painting and having the necessary writing to meet Charity: Water’s requirements. There have been two main problems common in many of the 14 villages with regard to completing the water tanks.

• Re-motivation problem
In some of the villages the toilet and bathing room construction was finished 3-4 years ago. However, due to the government not releasing funds, the construction of the water supply has been delayed until other funds, for example from Charity:Water could be secured.
These communities therefore often face motivation problems in terms of taking up construction work again, which can result in the need for Gram Vikas staff to spend much time motivating communities. This therefore delays the work further.

• Water tank as a status symbol
In many cases exposure visits to neighbouring villages are used to motivate other villages in the initial stages of gaining 100% inclusion and beginning the construction of the water and sanitation facilities. However, some of the villages covered under this project are smaller than villages they visited during exposure visits, and therefore their water tanks are smaller, often only one storey compared with two. The water tank’s are viewed as status symbol’s amongst villagers, therefore villages who only require a smaller water tower often get upset, and see their smaller water tank as being inferior to their neighbours’. This again can cause big motivational problems, and further delay the construction of the tank.

In addition, due to many of the villages being very remote, and dispersed, as well as not every project having its own camera or GPS unit we are still collecting GPS coordinates and photographs. The other issue we have is training staff at the various projects to use the GPS, although it is quite simple, it can cause difficulties for staff who are not used to handling electronic equipment. We are currently working very hard to try to get to every village and record the necessary data.