While the world community is observing March 22 as World Water Day with a comprehensive theme of ‘Leaving no one Behind’, the Madhya Pradesh Government has made a long stride to augment the service level of both water and sanitation.
The State has provided nearly 95% (NARSS 2018) of rural households with safe toilet technology option and ensured access to protected drinking water of around 99.9 per cent rural habitations (PHED 2018).
Still challenges are there in terms of equitable access to safe and secure drinking water supply. While 17 per cent of the rural households have access to safely managed drinking water, the others are depending on ground water reservoir through spot sources that poses a considerable public health threat due to bacteriological and chemical contaminations.
Fluoride is gradually emerging a serious concern in 9 out of 51 districts of the state. According to Census 2011, while 47.1 per cent households of Madhya Pradesh depend on spot sources for drinking water, 18.9 per cent on tap water from treated sources and 16.4% from untreated sources. The rest depend on uncovered or covered wells.
Largely inhabited by indigenous tribal population, Madhya Pradesh is one of the most backward and poverty stricken states of the country with 37.43 per cent population falling below the poverty line (1999-2000).
In the rural areas of Madhya Pradesh, maximum percentage share is occupied by hand pump followed by wells and tap water as main source of drinking water. In terms of the use of hand pumps, the state rural average is 58.3.
The dependence on tap water in the rural areas is 9.9 per cent.
At the district level, hand pumps account for the maximum percentage share as main source of drinking water for rural households.
In terms of service level, the Census 2011 found that only 13.0 per cent of rural households of the state had access to drinking water within the premise.
The natural calamities and disasters pose larger threat to water security in the state. Though Madhya Pradesh falls in low to medium seismic zone, other natural hazards like draught and flood is most common in most part of the state. One third of the area of the state is draught prone affecting the population of 17-25 districts.
Also recurrent flood has been another reason for the breakdown of system.
UNICEF is partnering with the Public Health Engineering Department of GoMP in implementing NRDWP to ensure water safety and security in rural areas. The technical support includes system strengthening, capacity building of stakeholders on water safety and security and its model demonstration, strengthening laboratory network etc. UNICEF support has been critical to influence the policy of state government in developing a wide network of water testing laboratories and augmenting service level through Chief Minister’s Nal Jal Yojna.
