National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) - Detailed Information and Objectives

Understanding the National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP)

• Launched in 2009, the National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) is a centrally sponsored scheme. It primarily focuses on ensuring the sustainability of water availability in terms of adequacy, affordability, quality, convenience and equity.
• The guidelines of the NRDWP were updated in 2013 to emphasize piped water supply, increase household tap connections and improve drinking water supply norms.
• The restructuring of the programme was aimed at enhancing monitoring and focusing on the sustainability of the scheme, ensuring the provision of quality service delivery to the rural populace.
• The programme was designed to be flexible, result-oriented and competitive, enabling the Ministry to work towards increasing the coverage of sustainable Piped Water Supply.
• The NRDWP also focuses on piped water supply, increasing the level of service delivery, addressing water quality issues, covering Open Defecation Free (ODF) declared villages, Integrated Action Plan (IAP) districts, Border Out Posts (BOP) with a piped water supply and setting up institutions for proper operation and maintenance of water supply assets.
• One of the main goals of the NRDWP is to increase the coverage of sustainable piped water supply across the country.
• The programme was operational until March 2020, co-terminus with the 14 ^th Finance commission.

Funding of the NRDWP

• The NRDWP is implemented as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme, with costs being shared between the Central and State Governments.
• The expenditure incurred on implementing the programme is shared between the Centre and the States in a 50:50 ratio.
• The Union Cabinet recently approved the restructuring and continuation of the programme.

Objectives of the NRDWP

• The NRDWP, a component of Bharat Nirman, aims to provide basic amenities to rural India.
• The programme envisages a progressive improvement in service levels, from unprotected water sources to wells, hand pumps and finally, household connections.
• The primary goal of the NRDWP is to provide safe and adequate water for drinking, cooking and other domestic needs to every rural person on a sustainable basis.
• The programme seeks to ensure permanent drinking water security in rural India and improve water quality by developing preliminary water testing capabilities at the gram panchayat level.

Components of the NRDWP

The NRDWP has several components to address the challenges of water availability, sustainability and quality. The funds for the programme (excluding the earmarked 5% Water Quality and 2% Natural Calamities fund) are utilized for the following components:

1. COVERAGE: Providing safe and adequate drinking water supply to unserved, partially served and slipped back habitations.
2. SUSTAINABILITY: Encouraging States to achieve drinking water security at the local level.
3. QUALITY: Providing potable drinking water to water quality-affected habitations.
4. OPERATION & MAINTENANCE (O&M): Covering the expenditure on running, repair and replacement costs of drinking water supply projects.
5. Water Quality Monitoring and Surveillance (WQMS).
6. SUPPORT activities.

Target of the NRDWP

• By 2022, the NRDWP aims to:
  • Ensure that at least 90% of rural households are provided with piped water supply.
  • Ensure that at least 80% of rural households have piped water supply with a household connection.
  • Ensure that less than 10% of households use public taps and less than 10% use hand pumps or other safe and adequate private water sources.
  • Provide enabling support and environment for all Panchayat Raj Institutions and local communities to manage 100% of rural drinking water sources and systems.