Swajal: Faith On Community

Swajal is an illustration of obtaining success by believing the wisdom of the Community which is lacking in all the Government departments.  In fact, most of the Government departments do have negative feelings towards public participation in schemes especially in engineering departments.  Initially when the project was started, there was all round criticism regarding the success of the project and the wisdom of the Government reposing faith on the communities and NGOs.  All the doubts were set at rest by the phenomenal success of the project

 One realises that even in a poor country like India, people are willing to pay for services like water supply provided the service is reliable.  Swajal is an alternative project by-passing the regular Government system including Panchayats.  However, it was felt at the end of the project that if not the Government department like ‘Jal Nigam’, at least, panchayat must be involved right from the beginning so that a legal cover is given to the project and the assets created under the Project.  Simultaneously, it is also felt that it is not beyond the capacity of the Government agencies like ‘Jal Nigam’ to completely work with the communities and do projects similar to Swajal.  In fact, we found that at places where ‘Jal Nigam’ worked as a software agency under Swajal project, the job was good.  Perhaps the basic problem I can see is the superiority complex of the engineers of the  ‘Jal Nigam’ or the unwillingness to make the common villager a partner and give respect to his ideas.  No doubt, technically the engineers may be superior.  However, when it comes to sustainability of the systems, the community management is a crucial one.

To my mind, the most important thing in the project is the decision making by the communities.  Communities were required to make important decisions such as who will be the contractor and what will be the rate at which a particular work will be executed.  The sense of ownership by the community was found to be extremely high.  The Swajal has created a new chapter in community procurement.  A team of dedicated and highly motivated and knowledgeable people lead by the Addl. Director of the Project Shri Natu and Shri Y.N.Chaturvedi came up with a friendly, innovative and technically sound system by which the community can procure materials and labour, get the work executed and make payments.  It is not very easy to organize the rigid and outdated Government accounting system and procedures and the newly promoted community procurement system.  Communities were trained very carefully so that the purchases and spending are prudent and to a great extent will withstand the scrutiny and rigour of the Government auditors.  In this area, the project has made a unique contribution which has never been done before in the world.

In fact, one of the major strengths of the project was its officers and other personnel involved in running the project.  To put it one sentence, we are extremely happy that village communities reciprocated overwhelmingly the faith that was placed on them by the Swajal project.  I am sure in future, Swajal has proved it is a very viable model for future.  It can be adopted in every Sate and country of Government of the underdeveloped world.  I ‘m happy that the Govt. of India has drawn heavily from the expenses of Swajal Project and   initiated Swajal dhara and other sector reform measures.

S.Raju
Regional Officer, CBFC,Chennai
& Former Director, Swajal