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INTRODUCTION
Rural drinking water supply in Madhya Pradesh
Rural water supply has traditionally focused on extending coverage to rural areas in order to provide a ‘safe’ quality of water and service. However, water being a State subject, the primary responsibility for providing drinking water facilities in the country rests with the respective State Governments. States generally plan, design and execute water supply schemes (and often continue to operate them) through their State Public Health Engineering Departments, while the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (MDWS), Government of India, formulates policies and guidelines for the sector and supplements the efforts of State Governments by providing technical and financial assistance under the centrally sponsored National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP). The programme was launched in 2009.
For coverage of rural habitations with sufficient and safe water, the Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) executes various water supply schemes such as hand pumps, dug wells, stand-posts and piped water supply schemes (PWSSs) (small single village and big multi-village schemes).
PWSSs are water supply systems that provide water to various points away from the source of water through a pumping or gravity system and connections through pipelines. The water supply points may be situated at a single public place in the form of stand-posts, where people come and fetch water from tap connections, or these points may be available in the form of household (HH) tap connections.
The PHED of the State Government of Madhya Pradesh is responsible for designing, executing and commissioning PWSSs (be it single village, multi-village or mega water supply schemes) in rural areas of the State. The PHED does so with financial assistance from the Government of India and from its own sources. For execution of multi-village PWSSs based on surface water, a separate legal entity has been constituted in the name of Madhya Pradesh Water Corporation Limited.
After execution and commissioning, these schemes are handed over to Gram Panchayats (GPs), Panchayat Raj Institutions (PRIs) or the local community for operation and maintenance. As per the recently notified Madhya Pradesh Gramin Nal Jal Praday Yojna Sanchalan Evam Sandharan Niyam, 2014, published in the State Gazette on 20th January, 2015 for operation and maintenance of a piped water supply in each village, a Drinking Water Sub-Committee, on...