Start Date: 2012-04-01

Completion Date: 2012-12-31

Technology Used:

Gram Vikas believes that achieving long-lasting, sustainable change in the community requires more than simply building water and sanitation infrastructure. Thus the MANTRA project also supports the creation of self-governing democratic institutions, which are inclusive of all regardless of caste, social status or gender. 100% inclusion is the most difficult part of the programme.

The scope of this project is for the deployment of a water and sanitation solution for 103 families in Kundriguda village in rural Odisha. This encompasses 704 individuals.

The following steps describe the MANTRA approach

1. The first step of the project is to achieve 100% consensus in the village. This requires all heads of households, male and female, to agree to come together to collectively address the village's water and sanitation problem. This step is all the more critical that social pressure is required in order to end the practice of open defecation, thus eliminating the source of water-borne diseases. Once the villagers come together, a series of community meetings take place to motivate people, and to help them understand the need for inclusive water and sanitation, and to establish the roles and responsibilities required of them by the project.

2. Gram Vikas works to build the confidence and skills of the community's women, helping them set up Self-Help Groups, and linking them to financial institutions. This creates a ripple effect that impacts the social and economic fabric of the community.

3. A Village Executive Committee (VEC) is set up in order to implement and manage the use of water and sanitation facilities. The VEC requires equal representation of men and women, and proportionate representation of marginalised communities (such as Scheduled Castes.) Gram Vikas plays the role of facilitator, building the capacity of the villagers to run the programme and manage their own institutions. The VEC is officially registered.

4. A village corpus fund is created, with a one-time average contribution of Rs. 1000 (approx. $20) per household deposited into an account. Better-off families typically pay more, and adjusted installment rates can be negotiated to ensure equity. Interest from the corpus fund is used exclusively for the construction of facilities for new households, thus ensuring 100% coverage in the future as well.

5. In preparation for the construction of toilets, community members have to provide money, labor and time to provide all locally-available materials, such as bricks. Gram Vikas provides a subsidy towards the purchase of materials from outside, but the community has to contribute the rest of the money. Gram Vikas provides masonry training, thus also enhancing the livelihood options of the villagers beyond the duration of the project.

6. Sanitary toilet and bathing room blocks are built for each household in the village. Next, the water supply system is established, by building a water source, an elevated water reservoir, and a distribution network. Wherever possible, to reduce dependency on outside power sources, Gram Vikas employs an innovative approach to water supply called “Induced Gravity Flow”. This approach, developed by Gram Vikas, builds on traditional gravity flow techniques, but allows access to water at greater depths without the need of water pumps. Each household is provided with a 24-hour water supply and 3 taps: one in the toilet room, one in the bathing room, and one in or just outside the kitchen.

7. The community next establishes a maintenance fund, in order to cover ongoing costs. Community members also come together to generate income through such activities as fish farming in village ponds which were previously used for bathing, social forestry, and community horticulture. The experience of working as a community, making decisions together and mobilising resources creates a legacy of confidence and skills for the entire community.

8. Intensive capacity building and skill training take place for all stakeholders, in order to address the technical part of the project, as well as bring about democratic leadership, behavioural change, and institutional management skills in the communities.

When the facilities are in place, and the community possesses the right skills and governing institutions to ensure the maintenance of the system beyond the end of the project, Gram Vikas withdraws from the village, and monitors the village's situation.

A bore well is used as the source of water. An electric water pump is used to collected and stored water in an elevated water reservoir.

Phases:

The project will be finished in one phase.

Community Organization:

Gram Vikas has designed a sustainable model for community organization and development named MANTRA (Movement and Action Network for the Transformation of Rural Areas), based on five core values:
1) 100% inclusion
2) Gender equity
3) social equity
4) sustainability
5) cost sharing
Water and sanitation activities have been taken up as entry point activity for initiating all round development of villages.

100% inclusion of all families is a pre-condition for initiating the WATSAN work in a village. This is crucial from a total sanitation point of view, as even if one family continues to practice open defecation, water sources will continue to be polluted. 100% inclusion is also a step towards addressing exclusionary practices prevailing in society –mainly towards Dalits, indigenous communities and women.

Other core values include cost sharing, and gender and social equity. Gram Vikas does not believe in the common attitude of “poor people only need poor solutions.” Gram Vikas motivates and enables communities to overcome deep rooted divisions along lines of caste and gender to come together and achieve high quality solutions, resulting in every household having a toilet, and bathing room, with three taps supplying piped, potable water. Gram Vikas believes that the poor can and will pay for truly beneficial development solutions, however the larger community also has a role in meeting the social cost for families, especially in areas where the government makes no or measly investment in water and sanitation infrastructure.

Before the programme begins in any village, the village must come to a consensus that all families, without exception, will participate. This brings the community together across barriers of caste, gender and economic status, which for centuries have excluded large sections of communities from the process of development. The village must also raise a corpus fund of Rs.1,000 ($20) per household with the better-off paying more and the poorer less. The corpus fund is an acid test, demonstrating that the community is committed to the process of development. Interest from the corpus fund is used to meet the social costs of extending the water and sanitation system to new households in the future, ensuring 100% coverage at all times.

The community drives the implementation of the programme. The community makes the bricks and collects all the local materials available and rural youth trained in masonry build the overhead water tank and lay the network of pipes. 1-2 rural youth are trained as pump operators and are taught how to make any necessary repairs to the system.
The management of the project is undertaken by the Village Executive Committee (VEC) comprising of 6 men and 6 women, all of whom are elected democratically. In addition to constructing the water and sanitation infrastructure, Gram Vikas spend time building the capacities of this committee to enable them to gradually take over the entire responsibility for managing the water and sanitation infrastructure after Gram Vikas’ withdrawal from the village.

Government Interaction:

Gram Vikas is an approved project implementing agency for the government’s Swajaldhara water scheme and is also the implementing agency for Orissa Tribal Empowerment and Livelihood Programme. Gram Vikas also facilitates the BPL and APL households to avail the subsidy of Rs, 4500 under Total Sanitation campaign.

Ancillary activities:

Before construction of the toilets and bathing rooms, young men and women, working as unskilled laborers, are trained in masonry. On completion of the training, they construct the toilets, bathing rooms, and the overhead water tanks. These newly trained masons are assured of work for a period of time if they so desire, many go on to successfully secure lucrative contracts in nearby urban centers, and within a year, their income earning capacity increases by at least three times.

Families are encouraged to do backyard farming with the waste water from the bathing rooms that add to the diet intake at the household level.

Women members are encouraged to form savings and credit groups and initiate small savings after which they are supported to take up Income generating activities.

Other Issues:

Although the government is supposed to provide and secure drinking water to rural communities, most often it ends up by installation of a hand pump in the village. With high use, the pumps often break down and the community depends upon the government functionaries to repair the system. In many instances such delays linger for long and people resort to unsafe surface water for drinking purpose.

Government usually prioritizes bigger villages for implementation of water supply projects and the small tribal habitations are left to fend for themselves. There is hardly any intervention in these small habitations that can help the people to get safe water.

In this context Gram Vikas prioritizes its efforts in such remote areas and works with the community to have systems to manage their drinking water needs.