Provision of safe drinking water is a basic necessity and has been a major topic for key political discourses in the country over the last decade. The Government of India has been focusing on safe drinking water since 1972-73 when it introduced the Accelerated Rural Water Supply Program (ARWSP) to assist States and Union Territories to accelerate the coverage of drinking water in the country. Despite increased outlays since then, access to safe drinking water in India remains a challenge. Apart from access, water quality and sustainability of resources (water points and infrastructure developed) are issues of major concern. The National Rural Drinking Water Program (NRDWP), which is supplementing the efforts of the State Governments by providing technical and financial assistance, is looking at rural drinking water from a holistic viewpoint. The Ministry has shifted its focus from hand pumps to piped water supply systems with the aim of providing monitored clean water and is focusing on those States which have low levels of piped water supply. The Water and Sanitation Program has compiled an excellent collection of success stories and best practices from the States of Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Punjab and Uttarakhand which address these key constraints. Some of these success stories, such as the Asoga village intervention in Karnataka which showcases a unique demand driven approach to facilitate participatory decision making leading to community ownership, the Bidholi piped water supply scheme in Uttarakhand which manages and recovers 100 per cent operation and maintenance costs from the community, the Shikayat Nivaran Kendra experiment in Punjab which uses information technology for online web enabled centralised complaint redressal and the Water and Sanitation Management Organisation experiment in Gujarat where the registered body acts as a facilitator in developing water and sanitation facilities owned and managed by communities, are all outstanding examples of how to address various challenges and shortcomings the program is facing.

Taking an integrated approach to the country's rural water supply issues, Government of India's (GoI's) National Rural Drinking Water Program (NRDWP) focusses on the key aspects of source and system sustainability. System sustainability is inextricably linked to both technical and financial aspects of operations of rural water supply schemes. A key plank of NRDWP's approach as well as that of the sector reform project that preceded it is the devolution of Operations and Maintenance (O&M) functions, particularly related to distribution at the village level, to Gram Panchayats (GPs), or local government entities, through the formation of Village Water and Sanitation Committees (VWSCs). However, the lack of substantive community engagement in planning and implementation of schemes as well as capacity constraints in GPs has limited the spread and implementation of this approach. As reported in a recent study for the Planning Commission (PC, 2010), only a fourth of GPs surveyed reported VWSCs and less than one percent of the respondents were aware of the VWSCs' existence.

This report on India's rural water supply and sanitation points out that India has achieved considerable success in providing safe drinking water to about 85% of her rural population by tapping ground and surface water through 3 million hand-pumps, thousands of water supply schemes and traditional sources. Despite the impressive coverage of provision of safe drinking water facilities in the rural areas, there are certain areas of serious concern. The issue of sustainability and maintenance of quality of water supplied are cited as the two major constraints in achieving the avowed objectives. In the years to come, the rural water supply program is sure to have serious challenges by way of meeting the expanding needs of a fast growing population, as well as the increasing demand of the population for higher service levels. The adoption of the demand driven approach replacing the present supply focused approach is a pre requisite for evolving suitable cost sharing practices with active participation of the stakeholders. In this background, the report on the rural water supply and sanitation by the World Bank, as part of the Water Resources Management Work, dwells on the policy and constraint of this sector, as well as on institutional and financial issues related to the sector reform process, and advocates an approach to bring about radical reforms in the sector.