Paani Puri: Tap Its Success

Context: Odisha’s ‘drink straight from the tap facility’ now needs to be emulated, with tweaks, in other states.

Case study: Puri drinking water model: 

• First city in India to provide every household with a 24x7 drink-from tap connection
• The policy trigger: 
  • It was recognised that drinking water quality was not poor because of faulty processing, but it was due to glitches in distribution
  • Odisha government raised the bar on the AMRUT guidelines by including to provide a drink from-tap connection to every household.
• Key elements of the policy:
  • Incorporated state-of-the art tech: Invested in Internet of Things (IoT) to ensure real-time data collection, broke up the network into zones to localise disruptions and avoid a system breakdown.
  • Community centric strategy – Key to sustainability: It aligned the project with an ongoing state programme to empower women and enlisted 5,000 jalsathis. Jalsathis were incentivised for procuring a new connection.
    • These women were the ambassadors for the project especially when it came to the mandatory installation of meters and developed a trust quotient in community.
  • Administrative rejig to allow for greater flexibility: Odisha created a corporate entity, Water Corporation of Odisha (WATCO), in 2015 under the Companies Act to provide administrative freedom to helm the plan to provide drinking water 24x7.
  • Addressing the challenge of last mile reach: Brought installation of household connections, for a fee, under the purview of WATCO.
  • Upholding equity: Existing volumetric tariffs were left unchanged and subsidies to the poor retained.

Scope for expansion: Taking the cue from Puri model, GoI's Jal Jeevan Mission is reportedly all set to expand drinking water mission to some 106,00 villages across the country.