PRWSSIP

Picture: The mega water project plant in the district of Moga

The World Bank has approved $248 million loan for the Punjab Rural Water and Sanitation Sector Improvement Project to help the state significantly improve its delivery of water and sanitation services as well as reduce open defecation to improve the quality of life in rural Punjab.

The project will aim for a water connection and a toilet for every rural households by end of the project period, which would be a first for any state in India.

The project will help reorganize the department of water supply and sanitation to focus on service delivery rather than on asset creation through minor upgrades for improving efficiency, free house connections; progressively scale up service levels to achieve 100 percent meter connections for all rural households with at least 10 hours of daily supply with volumetric based charging; and encourage toilet construction. Special focus will be on schemes that are underperforming in order to build their capacity and ownership. These “low cost and high impact” activities are expected to benefit women and children who are otherwise responsible for daily water collection and storage.