CAG: Govt failed to achieve rural drinking water scheme target

The Comptroller Auditor General (CAG) has found that the Union Water and Sanitation Ministry has  failed in achieving the targets of the 12th Five year plan (2012-2017) under its central flagship National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP). 

Under the programme, the Ministry had announced to make safe water accessible to all rural habitations, Government schools and anganwadis, potable water to 50 per cent of rural population and 35 per cent of rural households to be provided household connections by 2017.

However, as on December 2017, only 44 per cent of rural habitations and 85 per cent of government schools and anganwadis could be provided access to safe drinking water. Also, only 18 per cent of rural population could be provided potable drinking water by piped water supply while a mere 17 per cent of rural households had household connections.

The overall coverage of rural habitations increased only by eight per cent at 40 lpcd and 5.5 per cent at 55 lpcd after incurring expenditure of Rs 81,168 crore during the period 2012-17, said the CAG in its report tabled in Parliament in the recently concluded session.

It further pointed out that community water purification plants could be set up in only five per cent of quality affected habitations and sustainability plans were either not prepared or not included in annual action plans.

The CAG listed several reasons for the Government’s failure that kept it from meeting its target.

“ There was inadequate focus on surface water based schemes and a large number of schemes (98 per cent) including piped water schemes continued to be based on ground water resources. Further, operation and maintenance plans were either not prepared in most of the States or had deficiencies leading to schemes becoming non-functional. As a result, incidence of slip-back habitations continued to persist,” said the report.

Further, lack of requisite number of States/district/sub-divisional level laboratories resulted in shortfalls in prescribed quality tests of water sources and supply thereby diluting the objective of providing safe drinking water to the rural population, it added.

Lastly, institutional mechanisms for inspection, vigilance and monitoring were either not established or were not functioning in the manner envisaged and the overall monitoring and oversight framework lacked effectiveness, said the report.

The performance audit covered the period from 2012 to 2017 and examined various aspects of the Programme such as planning, delivery mechanism, fund management, implementation including coverage of partially covered and quality affected habitations, water quality monitoring and surveillance.