By Debabrata Mohanty, Director Project, WATCO, and Chinmaya Tripathy, Chief Executive Officer, Ecometrix
Odisha’s Drink from Tap (DfT) mission is transforming the state’s water supply landscape by ensuring clean and continuous drinking water to its citizens directly from taps. Spearheaded by the Water Corporation of Odisha (WATCO), a non-profit organisation owned by the Odisha government, this ambitious initiative addresses pressing issues of water scarcity and quality, thereby improving public health, hygiene and overall quality of life.
The mission has achieved significant progress in ensuring 24×7 water supply in various parts of Odisha. WATCO has undertaken several initiatives to build public trust in safe, treated drinking water, which is crucial for the success of the DfT programme. To this end, it has strengthened water quality monitoring by setting up laboratories and encouraged community participation through initiatives like “Jalasathi”. Further, various water-related challenges have been tackled by WATCO through robust infrastructural development for universal coverage and digital water management, with the creation of district metered areas (DMAs), digital water management, infrastructure mapping, water metering, etc.
Mapping progress
The remarkable success of 24×7 water supply across cities in Odisha sets a precedent for the entire country to follow. Before the DfT initiative came into the picture, the water supply coverage was limited, plagued by significant water losses. Only 40 per cent of areas were covered with a piped water network. In addition, only around 30 per cent of the urban households had water connections, while rural households were not covered at all. Water supply was erratic with low pressure, and costly water supply through private tankers was prominent. Additionally, poor water quality further compromised public health and trust in the system.
The DfT mission aimed to rectify this situation, providing assurance of high quality piped-water supply and 100 per cent metered water connections. Its objectives include the reduction of the extent of non-revenue water (NRW) and leakages through real-time monitoring. WATCO has taken significant strides to achieve these goals and has made remarkable progress across the state. For instance, DfT is operational in 24 urban local bodies (ULBs) in Odisha, benefiting around 4 million residents, and is targeted to be extended to all 115 ULBs in the state. Eleven cities in Odisha have achieved full DfT status. Among these, Puri has marked the milestone of being the first DfT city in India.
Household water connections have been provided to 99 per cent of urban households and 97 per cent of rural households, while 100 per cent of the household connections are metered in the DfT cities.
Actions and plans under DfT
Despite progress, the implementation of DfT has encountered several challenges. These were addressed through initiatives such as the formation of DMAs, adoption of digital water management and demand management, and bulk metering.
Creation of DMAs
WATCO focused on creating small and well-controlled DMAs for better monitoring and effective regulation of water supply services. Each DMA consisted of around 1,000-1,500 household connections, while sub-DMAs were created with 500 connections within a DMA. Zero-pressure testing was conducted before the commissioning of these DMAs. Bulk meters and flow control valves with solenoids were fitted at the entry of each DMA to ensure the automatic adjustment of flow during peak and non-peak hours.
Water infrastructure mapping
There were no physical or digital records to map the location and existence of water infrastructure assets at the early stages of the DfT initiative in Odisha. Additionally, there was no clarity on the number, location and identity of the consumers to be served by WATCO. To solve this issue, in the first six months, a comprehensive survey was undertaken in every pilot city. This aided in understanding the location and status of water infrastructure in the state. With this information, WATCO developed a digital asset register and a geographic information system platform. All the consumers have been GIS-mapped and their details were obtained through a KYC process.
Digital initiatives for ensuring water quality
The DfT mission has deployed various digital initiatives to enhance the operational efficiency of water management. For efficient O&M with no downtime of services, an IoT-based real-time data collection, analysis, reporting and command and control system with online sensors has been installed across the city water supply network. The grievance response and resolution time has been reduced from weeks to a few hours, resulting 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, the services are not disrupted. This has reduced the manpower requirements to a large extent.
Ensuring quality at consumer end
One of the major focus areas of the DfT mission is providing high-quality water directly to the tap connections of end-consumers. In this direction, state-of-the-art laboratories are being set up across Odisha. The state has a target to build 17 such laboratories, of which nine third-party labs have been established and one is expected to be operational soon. These are intended to provide water quality protocols and maintain the quality of water supplied in the long run. Further, to make the water testing efficient, technological deployments like internet of things-based real-time surveillance are being undertaken to check water quality. Digital interventions like online residual chlorine analysers and automatic chlorine dosing are being used to check the levels of chlorine in the tap water. Alongside, a water quality assurance cell has also been established by the Odisha government to provide guidance for water quality surveillance and assurance.
The success of the DfT mission is largely dependent on winning consumer confidence and trust by providing better water quality. To this end, several systematic digital measures were adopted for addressing the public grievances. For instance, a 24×7 customer care centre has been developed to track the resolution of consumer complaints. Quick response teams have also been deployed to provide water-related resolution services. Further, a mobile laboratory called Lab on Wheels has been introduced, which offers water sample testing on the spot.
Reduction of NRW
Non-revenue water reduction has been the major challenge and hence our top priority. Along with real-time digital water management, an exclusive NRW cell has been created with dedicated crew members for leakage reduction. With focused implementation pertaining to the critical aspect of NRW reduction under the mission, it has come down to less than 15 per cent from the previous 54 per cent.
Strengthening community partnership
To sustain the positive impact of the DfT mission in the long run and achieve its objectives, community engagement is of paramount importance. DfT endeavours to reinforce partnerships with the public to effectively manage water infrastructure. To this end, WATCO has trained women under the Jalasathi initiative to facilitate water service delivery and other vital functions under the performance-linked incentive model. These Jalasathi facilitate new water connections, water metering, bill generation and collection of water charges. They also conduct field water quality testing and consumer complaint resolution. This collaboration aims to bridge the gap between the government and the local communities. Each Jalasathi earns between Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000 per month as incentive, which has transformed women empowerment, both socially and economically. The Jalasathi initiative has taken women empowerment through the self-help group (SHG) model to a higher orbit, that is, from traditional unskilled/semiskilled economic activities to high-end managerial activities, such as managing the complete value chain for ward-level water management.
In sum
The DfT mission has taken drinking water service delivery to new heights in Odisha. Various innovative measures have been implemented under DfT to provide IS 10500 quality drinking water to every household, 24×7, and ensure that water received from taps can directly be used for drinking and cooking without the need for further filtration or boiling. This has led to the reduction of health risks for citizens. These measures include:
A multi-pronged, people-centric approach with the conversion of intermittent water supply to continuous (24×7), 100 per cent household coverage with piped water supply and metering, focus on the urban poor, NRW reduction, innovative state-of-the-art technologies and management techniques
Community partnership in water supply management through women SHGs (Jalasathi) that have bridged the gap between communities and WATCO
Key components such as 24×7 customer care, GIS mapping of assets and consumers, real-time SMART water management, PPP laboratories, Pure for Sure Campaign, etc.
Building institutions such as WATCO under the Companies Act, coupled with process and systems improvements such as quality certification as per ISO 9001:2015, empanelment of plumbers, right to water for the urban poor, Lab on Wheels, NRW control cell and quick response team
With its DfT mission, Odisha has made significant progress in ensuring access to safe drinking water in its various cities. It focuses on key elements such as demand management and a phased approach –working on one DMA at a time, stabilising it before moving to the next. It has also emphasised the importance of community engagement to drive behavioural change which is essential for the long-term success of these initiatives. Further, digital deployments have been implemented for real-time monitoring, command and control, and the use of artificial intelligence to integrate systems across different DMAs is being explored. There is also a strong emphasis on collaboration with research bodies to enhance the mission’s long-term sustainability. For instance, an MoU has been signed with IIT Madras to strengthen water quality monitoring systems. IIT Madras is providing standard operating procedures on maintaining water quality, along with guidelines for sample collection and other parameters. These initiatives are expected to strengthen the water sector in Odisha and make it resilient in the long run.
