Drink from TAP Mission

Puri

The water supply system of Puri was intermittent in nature, prone to contamination which often led to public health hazards. Erratic water supply was, inequity in supply, inconsistent pressure, and high losses due to leakage resulted in public dissatisfaction. Puri being a coastal city is prone to frequent cyclones causing the water supply service susceptible to disruption.  Only 50 % of the houses had piped water connections. Others were dependent on public stand posts or other sources and have to stand in long ques for hours to fetch drinking water. Lack of Community connect of the water supply authority led to consumer distrust and dissatisfaction.

1. Erratic water supply was, inequity in supply, inconsistent pressure, and high losses due to leakage resulted in public dissatisfaction. 
2. Puri being a coastal city is prone to frequent cyclones causing the water supply service susceptible to disruption. 
3. Only 50 % of the houses had piped water connections. Others were dependent on public stand posts or other sources and have to stand in long ques for hours to fetch drinking water. 
4. Lack of Community connect of the water supply authority led to consumer distrust and dissatisfaction.

To address the issue, the idea and approach of the project was conceptualized with following solutions:

1. Provide IS 10500 Quality Drinking water to every home to ensure that water received from taps in citizen households can directly be used for drinking and cooking without the need for further filtration or boiling and Reduce health risks to citizens. 
2. Equitable, sustainable and people-centric service provision with focus on the urban poor. 
3. Reduce citizens’ and household investments on individual household level water tank/reservoir, sump, motor pump, water filter and other private arrangements.
4. Community Partnership for Community led Drinking Water Distribution Management for sustainability. 
5. Implementation of IoT driven Smart Water Management for Realtime Operation & Management of the System

The solutions were implemented by the project authority, via certain initiatives, including:

1. Institutional Reform: As sectoral reforms, Water Corporation of Odisha (WATCO) a company has been established with an objective to inculcate corporate governance & efficiency, functional autonomy and customer centric service culture in water supply service delivery. WATCO is executing the Drink from Mission.
2. Community Partnership: To establish the community connect, an innovative community partnership program was launched named as JALSAATHI (WATER FRIEND). The members of Women Self-help Groups were appointed as JALSAATHI’s through an incentive-based partnership program. These Jalasathis act as key community link between the public and WATCO to fill the gaps in efficient and effective service provision.
3. Smart Water Management: For efficient O&M with no downtime of the services, an IoT based Realtime data collection, analysis, reporting, command & control system with online sensors installed across the city network has been implemented. The issue resolution time has reduced from weeks to few hours, resulted in customer satisfaction. Further, since the system can now be operated remotely, it has become disaster resilient and even during natural calamities such as Cyclones (Puri as coastal town is prone to cyclones), the services are not disrupted. This has reduced the manpower requirement to a large extent.
4. Policy Interventions: Treating household connection as public work for hassle free house connection for consumer & to avoid any defect in the connection which leads to leakages & contamination.

1. Non-Availability of existing Infrastructure Assets and consumer information for planning 
2. Lack of Public Confidence and Trust: To build and enhance the public trust, extensive IEC campaign (Pure for Sure Campaign) has been carried out in communities. In addition, real time water quality data display was done through public domain and through Digital Display Boards installed in key public places. 
3. Huge Manpower required for meter reading, bill distribution & revenue collection: Community Participation was considered a solution. Members from local Women SHG groups were appointed as “Jalsathi” on performance linked incentive basis. The Jalsathis acted a bridge between the WATCO and the consumers. The Jalsathis were tranined and moblized for meter reading, bill distrbution, revenue collection at door step with MPoS machines. They were also provided with a water testing kit and trained to carry out household elvel water quality indicator tests. 
4. Creating key leaderships in the Team was addressed through selection of committed team, continuous motivation, capacity building and incentivisation at the leadership level. 
5. Challenge of Change Management in ensuring transition from conventional water supply management to smart water management-oriented consumer-centric timely service delivery. 
6. The issue of lack of trained manpower. 
7. Removal of Public Stand posts were necessary to control water wastage, which faced public resentment. 

1. Non-Availability of existing Infrastructure Assets and consumer information was addressed by GIS based mapping of each asset and consumer. 
2. The issue of lack of trained manpower was addressed through creating of Odisha Water Academy for continuous training and capacity building of staff. 
3. The challenge of Change Management in ensuring transition from conventional water supply management to smart water management-oriented consumer-centric timely service delivery was addressed by continuous capacity building, establishment of Standard Operating Procedures, robust monitoring mechanisms and incentivising the best performers for motivation. 
4. Public stand posts were removed in phased manner by building public trust and confidence of availability of 24X7 water supply at each household

1. Building institutions like WATCO under the Companies Act coupled with process and system improvements like Quality Certification as per ISO 9001:2015, Empanelment of Plumbers, NRW Control Cell, Quick Response Team, establishing Odisha Water Academy etc. led to success of the project. 
2. Jalsathi model has taken SHG women empowerment to a higher orbit i.e. from traditional unskilled/ semiskilled economic activities to high end managerial activities such as managing the complete value chain in the ward level water management (meter reading, bill raising, user charges collection, quality testing and facilitating customer grievance redressal)

1. The entire population of 250000 living in Puri have directly benefitted by having 24X7 Drink from Tap Quality Water at their home. 
2. In addition, approximately 50000 tourists visit daily to the world famous Jagannath temple at Puri, have benefitted by the facility of Drink straight from the Tap. 
3. Engagement of Women Self-help group members as Jalsaathis, for facilitating new connections, reading meters, doorstep billing & collection of user charges, field level water quality testing and facilitate grievance redressal has brought transformation in women empowerment and community participation in public service delivery. Each Jalasathi earns between 150 US$ to 200 US$ per months as incentives.

1. Round the Clock Water Supply 
2. 100% houses have water supply house connections 
3. Public Stand Posts have been removed with 100% house connection 
4. 100% metered house connections 
5. Non-Revenue Water Reduced to 15% 
6. Automated complaint logging through 24X7 customer service and online complaint management 
7. Issues are resolved with few hours with implementation of smart water management 
8. 100% asset and Consumer data are GIS mapped and can be accessed online 
9. Real time online data collection, recording, analysis and command & control with SMART Water Management 
10. Community partnership at Ward level with jalsaathis 
11. The Water borne disease cases have dropped by more than 90% and no deaths. 
12. With improved public health low turnout in schools and absenteeism from work has greatly reduced. 
13. As sectoral reforms, Water Corporation of Odisha (WATCO) a corporate entity has been established to inculcate corporate governance & efficiency, functional autonomy and customer centric service culture in water supply service delivery under the Mission. 
14. Consistent pressure up to 3 stories houses 
15. Equitable Water Supply to all consumers at the rate of 135 Lpcd 
16. State of art PPP laboratories with institutionalization of stringent water quality surveillance and monitoring to ensure IS 10500 quality drinking water is supplied to every home. Lab on wheels are deployed for on-the-spot water quality testing 
17. Due to Drink from tap Quality water available at the Water Fountains on strategic locations, the use of mineral water bottles are eliminated reducing 400 metric tonnes of plastic waste annually 
18. Revenue collection increased to 97% 
19. Per household investment of around Rs. 50000 saved due to no need of household level underground storage Sump, Daily pumping, household level additional Treatment 
20. With Smart Water Management, Realtime data collection, command & control can be done from mobile/computer devices remotely, making the system disaster resilient. 
21. With establishment of Odisha Water Academy trained workforce created by continuous capacity building 

1. Based on the success of the Drink from Tap Mission in Puri City, Government of the State of Odisha has decided to upscale it to all the 114 Urban Local Bodies of the State in Phased manner. In the first phase, the Drink from tap Mission works in 17 Cities have commenced with 240 Million US$ investment. The works are to be completed by December 2023. 
2. The Jalsaathi initiative has upscaled to the entire State with more than 600 Jalsaathis have been partnered with for meter reading, bill raising, user charges collection, quality testing and facilitating customer grievance redressal. 
3. The mission has been up scaled to the Capital City of Bhubaneswar with 1.1 Million Population, 2nd largest City of Cuttack with 0.9 Million Population and the 3rd Largest city of Berhampur with 0.45 Million Population. 
4. Around 4 Million people will be benefitted with drink from tap quality drinking water round the clock in their home.
5. The Central Public Health Engineering Organization of Ministry of Housing Urban Affairs, Government of India has published the success story of Drink from tap Mission in Puri. 
6. Inspired by the success of Jalsaathi (Community Partnership) initiative, Government of India is widely promoting community partnership in Water Supply distribution & management for country wide implementation. 

1. Tapping Political Commitment is key. 
2. Public Drinking Water Supply is not only a purely engineering issue.
3. Be Flexible to Rewrite Policy – Policy must work for the public interest not against it. 
4. Be alert to Triggers and Respond Quickly. 

The DFT Mission established an indigenous Smart Water System that helps track leakages on a real-time basis and reduces the turnaround time to fix such leakages. Today, the water loss has steeply declined to 15% from the earlier 47%, helping save water and ensuring water security in the long run. Globally, 50% of water withdrawal must come from developing countries to meet the demand of a growing population. The drink from tap initiative of Puri certainly illustrates a way forward to meet such steep water withdrawal demands for a sustainable future.