The Swajal Adventure: A Personal Experience

Background: As the World Bank-assisted UP Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project (The Swajal project) comes to a close in May 2003 after 7 years of successful implementation, many memories of my association with the project come back to me. I was the first Director of Swajal and facilitated project preparation and the early years of implementation.

The Beginning: I remember my then boss, Mr. Harish Gupta, Secretary Rural Development, Government of UP calling me to his room in mid 1994 and asking me to take over the preparation of a long delayed rural water supply and sanitation (RWSS) project proposal first mooted by the state government to the World Bank in 1989. I started as a one-man team till my trusted colleagues, JP Shukla and Dr. Harish Chandra joined me and we began functioning from a one room office in the Secretariat, Lucknow. We soon shifted to an office in Gomti Nagar. I was given carte blanche to select my team and soon picked some outstanding officers from different departments of the government as well as from the private sector. These were JK Natu (the present Director of Swajal, Uttaranchal), the late Umesh Pathak, the late VK Varma, VK Agarwal, Uma Prakash, Meena Agarwal, SS Singh, SS Tomar, DS Dhapola and Arun Dobhal. Many good officers would join later as the Swajal reputation grew. I also had excellent superiors who supported me throughout: Harish Gupta, the late Indrani Sen, R Chandra, BN Tewari, AP Singh and SK Tripathi.

Project preparation and design: The early days of project preparation were tremendously hard but also exhilarating. We would often work late into the night and sometimes had heated debates about project design. We received great support and advice by the World Bank task team, headed by Xavier Legrain with Dianne Hughes, Sham Abhyankar and others. Our many arguments with the Bank team always ended with mutually agreed solutions and the professional relationship with the Bank team soon grew into personal friendship with them as individuals. Underpinning our close bond was agreement on key principles of project design: decentralized management, adoption of a demand responsive approach and, above all, letting communities take the lead in key aspects of the project.

Ups and downs: We took the Bank ‘conditionalities’ in our stride and an early success was obtaining the approval of the UP Cabinet for project design elements. The then Chief Minister of UP, who happens to be the CM today as well, appreciated that the project would help alleviate the problems of women and promptly approved it, despite some opposition from her Cabinet colleagues. Project processing took place in record time and implementation commenced in mid 1996. We then suffered two major setbacks when two core team members died. Umesh Pathak, who coined the term Swajal, died of a heart attack on a field trip and VK Verma, our outstanding Operations Chief, died of throat cancer. To add to these huge setbacks, Indrani Sen, my boss, also died of cancer. The team was deeply affected by these losses but we were determined to go on with the Swajal mission.

Implementation: The Swajal communities, assisted by local NGOs, rose to the challenge and took charge of their water and sanitation schemes. They managed the investment funds, procured materials, managed the construction and did the operation and maintenance themselves. The project introduced cost recovery in rural water supply for the first time in India. While it may be too early to draw final conclusions, sustainability studies conducted by the UP Government show that a high percentage of the schemes are functioning well and being managed by the user communities.

Swajal’s influence: The project soon became a best practice example and the central government began taking a close interest in it. Mr. Palat Mohandas, the then Director of the Rajiv Gandhi National Drinking Water Mission (presently Secretary Rural Drinking Water, Government of India) trekked 20 kilometers in the UP hills to visit some project villages and became a strong Swajal supporter. He used key Swajal design elements to frame the ambitious RWSS Sector Reform Program of the Government of India currently being implemented across 26 states and 67 districts of India. Swajal also had many international visitors and contributed to global learning in the sector.

Lessons learned: At a personal level, I learned a great deal from my days with the Swajal project: from communities, NGOs, my colleagues. We learned at first hand that poor people are willing to take charge of their own development if given the opportunity. It was inspiring to see women from the hills travel as much as 300 kilometers to procure pipes from cities for constructing their water supply schemes. We also learned the value of teamwork in managing the project. I can say without hesitation that this was the best team I had worked with in my 17 years of government service.

Swajal II: As the project comes to a close in May 2003, I wish the team all the best in their next endeavor, which is to design a follow-on RWSS program to cover the whole of the state of Uttaranchal. I have no doubt that the Swajal seed will flower across the state and that sustainable water and sanitation services will finally be available to rural communities.

Parameswaran Iyer,

Ex. Senior WSS Specialist,

Water and Sanitation Program (former Director Swajal)