20 Oct : A Round Table on strategies for Rural Drinking Water Supply Program and Sanitation is being organised by the Department of Rural Drinking Water Supply, Ministry of Rural Development at the Mirza Galib Hall, Scope Complex, Lodi Road New Delhi on Wednesday, the Oct. 21st,2009. The objective is to create awareness, orient and encourage the user groups and ensure wider participation of NGOs, Women Groups in the massive task of rural drinking water supply and sanitation under the Bharat Nirman program. The day long deliberations will focus on strategies which could be conducive for State Governments and the PRIs to upscale the activities under the National Rural Drinking Water Supply Program and the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC).
The round Table will be inaugurated by Ms. Agatha Sangma, Minister of State for Rural Development and presided over by the Union Minister of Rural Development & Panchayati Raj, Dr. C.P.Joshi who will deliver the valedictory address. The conference would be attended by representatives from several Union Ministries and from State Governments/ UT administrations, NGOs, social activists and leading educational institutions. Separate working groups would be discussing the strategies and come forward with the framework which could be adopted by the states based on their feasibility.
Among the issues likely to be discussed related to Rural Drinking Water Service delivery including Village Level/ community level decentralized systems and involvement of NGOs and CBOs, strengthening of PRIs for their future role in planning, execution and maintenance , Public-private partner ships, Capacity building and awareness generation of community; PRIs and technical personnel. Discussions on Water resources would be focussed on depleting ground water; Conjunctive use of water, traditional water harvesting, revival of water resources etc. Issues related to Rural Sanitation include – Successful models of IEC activities that can catalyze TSC; Scaling up of TSCs to achieve universal toilet coverage by 2012; Sustainability of sanitation coverage already achieved and increasing the participation of stake holders such as PRIs, NGOs, line departments etc.
It is expected that the outcome of these deliberations would provide a framework of the strategies to be adopted for short time and medium term planning so that basic functional requirement of providing safe drinking water to the rural population is met with ease and sustenance.