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Jal Jeevan Mission team at IIMB launches Policy Dialogues on 17th Feb 2023

08 FEBRUARY, 2023: The Jal Jeevan Mission team at IIM Bangalore is pleased to host a series of Policy Dialogues involving policy practitioners, researchers, non-profit organisations and other stakeholders to collectively understand and address key policy issues. The first Policy Dialogue in this series will be held on 17th February 2023, the theme of which is ‘Community engagement in local management and ownership of rural drinking water supply system’. The session from 11:00 am to 12:30 pm, on 17th February, will be livestreamed here: https://youtube.com/live/tBSQSSIoIRI?feature=share

The Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM), launched in 2019 by the Government of India, aims to provide sustainable, affordable, adequate and reliable drinking water supply to every rural household, contributing significantly to improved living standards of rural communities. The provision of piped water supply through ‘functional household tap connections’ (FHTC), and potable and safe drinking water to all rural households by 2024, have been its key objectives. The JJM has now achieved more than three times of its prior coverage of households (16.72% in 2019, which increased to 55.58% by the end of 2022) with functional tap water connections. The distinct feature of JJM has been the utility approach of service delivery – functional tap, source sustainability, adequate quality water, and local community management of operations and maintenance of the system along with required capacity building. Being a community-managed decentralized program, the operations and maintenance of the village water supply and related infrastructure is deemed to instil a sense of community ownership that is essential for sustainability of the water supply system.

Sustainable water supply and water resource management relies on community as well as stakeholders’ engagement from an early stage of implementation. Information, involvement and empowerment are the three pillars for maximizing community participation.

The following issues/topics are identified as the crucial focus areas of the Policy Dialogue to suggest measures for greater community involvement:

  1. Effective awareness building and training among stakeholders
  2. Quality, Quantity, and Reliability of rural drinking water supply
  3. Quality infrastructure development
  4. Measuring water consumption at household level for fair distribution

The Policy Dialogue will have individual presentations as well as panel discussions. Policy practitioners, researchers, and others who have contributed ideas to the successful implementation of drinking water supply will be invited as panellists.

During the Dialogue, the JJM Chair Professor at IIMB, Prof. Gopal Naik, will introduce the importance of the topic and moderate the session. Each panellist will share their opening remarks. The invited researchers/practitioners will present their research findings/experience of solving problem relevant to community engagement in local management of rural drinking water supply system. The topic will be opened for questions/suggestions/comments from the participants after the initial presentations by all the panellists. Panellists will then respond to any questions and summarise their observations. The Chair Professor will summarise proceedings highlighting the policy implications, which will be shared with the Government of India/State Governments.

The Policy Dialogue will be conducted virtually and the joining details for the same will be shared with the selected participants.

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