Susceptible to frequent droughts, the Bundelkhand region in Central India experiences acute water-stress. Various anecdotal surveys by NGOs point that women and young girls walk 4-5 hours to fetch water every day. The scarcity of drinking water has immense health ramifications. With daytime temperatures hovering above 40 degrees during April-August, water scarcity leads to dehydration and diarrhoea.

Pipra is a small village in the Niwari block of Tikamgarh district in Madhya Pradesh. There was a severe drought in Bundelkhand in 2012, which lasted four years. As a solution to the severe drinking water stress observed in Pipra, Development Alternatives proposed the installation of a solar energy based drinking water system. This would pump ground water from a bore well and supply to the household and public connections. The option of using solar energy was found to be more reliable than grid power for providing uninterrupted, affordable and clean power. Household and community level water connections were provided to the people, who now boast of an uninterrupted water supply throughout the year. To ensure that the system remains sustainable beyond the period of DA’s intervention in the village, the system has been implemented as a Community Owned, Community Operated (CO-CO) model where a Pani Panchayat (Water Committee) has been formed which comprises of members from different settlement areas within the village ensuring equal representation of people from all castes and genders. The members have been trained on operating and maintaining the infrastructure and system with monthly collection of a water service fee from the entire community. This amount is used to maintain the infrastructure and pay a stipend to a person who is responsible for operating and maintaining the infrastructure. It has been three years now and the village has round the year water supply even when there is water scarcity in the entire Bundelkhand region.

It has been found by NABARD that in several villages piped water supply has been installed but 90% of this infrastructure is not functional due to non - availability of assured power and management of the system. Most of the piped water supply and tanks are empty due to lack of ownership and control mechanism for providing services of water delivery. Therefore the COCO model could be a useful model for strengthening the system through community engagement.

The CO-CO model for ensuring access to drinking water systems stems from the fundamental ideology of community ownership of resources and decentralised governance. The community not only owns the resources it consumes but is also jointly responsible for its care and maintenance. With the monthly collection of service fee, this model deems to be economically effective for the village people as the people do not have to pay huge money to the water mafia or walk extremely long distances to fetch water thereby loosing time for productive work in their fields or for other work.  q