A Review of Rural Sanitation Structures and W...

A Review of Rural Sanitation Structures and Water Supply system

Author Name : Mr. Abhijeet Patil, Rahul Yadravi, Aniruddha Jamshetti, Amol Aldar, Vikram Waghmare, Ashish Basariwale

ABSTRACT

Over the last two decades, Maharashtra has made big strides in achieving access to safe water and sanitation facilities in rural areas. However, due to the state’s unique geo-hydrology which offers limited groundwater potential and the fact that most of the earlier water supply schemes were based predominately on groundwater because of the resource constraints, source failure and slippage of habitations from source- to no-source village has been quite common. In some cases, quality of water supply and sanitation infrastructure are not up to the mark. In order to address the challenges faced by the state’s Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Sector, Water Supply and Sanitation Department (WSSD), Government of Maharashtra (GoM) has recently launched Mukhyamantri Rural Drinking Water Programme with the overall objective of providing clean and adequate drinking water to the rural population. Further, to ensure enhanced performance of the water supply schemes, the WSSD has passed orders (through the Government Resolutions) to make third party technical inspection (by involving State engineering colleges among others) of rural water supply schemes compulsory and issued guidelines on how such inspections should be carried out. These initiatives are in line with the restructured NRDWP guidelines which have made third party evaluation of the completed piped water supply schemes mandatory.

Keywords: Water Scarcity, Rural population.