How competitive is the rural sanitation sector in India?

We often hear about public private partnership in water sector, especially in urban water and in some countries there are examples in peri-urban areas also.

The rural sanitation sector is very much a programme driven by GoI like any other welfare programmes. Though after sector reform there is a shift from supply driven to demand driven approach, but still there are no major private players in this sector. There are few examples where organisations like Gram Vikas, Ramakrishna Mission Lokasiksha Parishad having intensive rural sanitation programmes, but those are mostly individual efforts restricted in some pockets.

Still, there is no study or design available to understand the potential of rural sanitation and scope for private investment

Market Feasibility of rural sanitation programme in Maharashtra

The water and sanitation sector in Maharashtra has, during the last ten years, witnessed positive growth. Nearly 65 lakhs new households (53 per cent of the total households) have access to toilet facilities and 39 lakhs new households have access to a drinking water facility located within the premises (59 per cent of total households). Still 80.94 lakhs household go for open defecation in Maharashtra out of which 72.63 lakhs (89%) is from Rural Maharashtra. Still around 28 lakhs rural household are dependent on public hand pumps and around 31 lakhs rural households depend on community well for drinking water in rural Maharashtra. In all these places, there is very limited local level operation and maintenance system available for those drinking water sources. As centralised maintenance systems have failed to deliver, several decentralized community based models for management have evolved over the years. (Data source: Census 2011)

Two major flagship programmes of Government: Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan and National Rural Drinking Water Programme have been trying to address the much needed issue of open defecation free villages and household water safety and security. But the scale, magnitude and spread of the problems are so big that it is difficult to cater the need at grass root level by government machineries always on time and with quality.

The Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan is giving Rs 10,000 for each household (BPL, APL: small, landless, Marginal farmers, widow, disabled) as an incentive for construction of household toilet. For each toilet construction there are 20 person days of unskilled labour and 6 person days of skilled labour are involved as per the paid down guideline. Hence only for toilet construction of 72.63 lakhs rural HH toilets, it will generate 14 crore 52 lakhs person day for unskilled labour and 4 crore 35 lakhs of skilled labour. In monetary term, the wages for unskilled labour would be Rs 1990 crore and for skilled labour would be Rs 1241 crore.

In addition to this, there is more than 27000 GP in Maharashtra where NBA has allocated Rs 7 lakh to Rs 20 Lakh to set up a Solid and Liquid Wastes Management (SLWM) project. At present none of the GPs have the required skill to implement the scheme and without public private partnership this is very difficult to run a sustainable venture on SLWM. Here proposed social entrepreneurs can easily play a major role. The average HH size of a GP in Maharashtra is 200-300 and each SLWM plan can easily earn Rs 1000/month only for wastes collection as community contribution from villagers and Rs 2000/month from the sale of vermin compost.

Similarly, there is no hand pump mechanics at village level. Studies and field experiences reveals that a hand pump breaks at least 2-3 times in a year. At present each GP spends about Rs 1200-1500/Hand Pump for maintenance. They give the money to the block where officials engage a person to repair the hand pumps. However, it takes minimum 2-3 weeks to repair a hand pump as the maintenance load at block level is very high. UNICEF has piloted an initiative of hand pump mechanic and repair centre in Lalitpur, Uttar Pradesh. The model-informally known as the Hand pump Repair Centre (HPRC) Model- consists of three key elements: a hand pump repair centre at the block level managed by a private local entrepreneur, adequate number of trained mechanics at the gram panchayat level and an informed and motivated gram panchayat who use the services of the HPRC to ensure quality and timely repairs. The model has proved to be by and large successful; however certain operational aspects need further strengthening before it can be up-scaled to cover the entire state or advocated as an viable approach at the national level.

In addition to this, there is more than 1 lakh rural primary and elementary school run by ZP. Each school has at least 2 toilets whose maintenance is a big challenge. Each school receives Rs 7000-10000 yearly as an operation and maintenance grant for a year and a service provider can easily earn Rs 300/month for maintaining the toilets for each school. Adding all the schools, total Rs 6 crore will be revolved every month.

Therefore, there is no doubt that resources are there and there is a market which has not been envisaged in such a fashion and can be tapped. What we need to think little bit out of the box and open up the system.