Ensuring sustainability of rural drinking water systems: Case presentation from a national symposium organised by IIM Bangalore, appointed by the center as the JJM chair for O&M, Arghyam and eGovernments Foundation on 2nd November 2023.

1. All content in this presentation is licensed under CC BY 4.0 unless otherwise noted
Enablement of Fiscal
Sustainability in Rural Bodies
- A platform Approach
Presenter: Krishnakumar Thiagarajan
Location: IIM Bangalore
Date: 02/11/2023
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Agenda
● Context, Issues (Department, Village) & Scope
● Overview of the solution deployed & Progress so far
● Voice of Stakeholders & Impact on the Ground
● Learnings
● JJM - Way forward

3. Context
Approx Rs. 400 Crore fiscal shock for Finance Department (year end)
Actors
FD
PSPCL
Challenges
Huge Unpaid
bills from
villages
Huge
Unplanned
pending bills
at the Fiscal
year end
DWSS
Low awareness
of Revenue
Collection
No visibility of
Expenses
GPWSC
Inadequate
water charge
collection
Unable to pay
the bills -
including
power bill
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4. Village Level Diagnostics - FY 2021
Citizens
Actors
Bill
Collector
Treasurer VWC
Challenges
Sudden money
demands
Dispute over
dues and
ledger record
accuracy
Complaints of
Water Supply -
irregularity and
Quality
Manual
computation
and demand
determination
Maintaining &
physical
handling of
multiple
Registers &
Receipts
Limited
visibility on
collections
Accumulation
of liabilities
Inadequate
collection
Aspire
Sustainability
but facing
challenges in
managing data
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5. 5
Scope Identified
8+ lacs
Consumer
Connections
50
Divisions
4347
Villages water
schemes
~4000
Power
Connections
~6 m
Citizens Covered

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Overview of the solution deployed
mGramSeva app for digitalize revenue and expense management in GPWSCs.
DIGIT
iFIX Platform
mGramSeva
app
Rural Local
Body Water
Committee
Revenue
Collector
Citizens
Power
Corporation
Demand
Receipt
Bill
Payment
Demand
Receipt
Fiscal
Dashboards
Finance
Department
Water
Department
District
Administration
Query
Query
Real Time
Auditing
(Possible)
Bank
(Possible)
Credit
Debit
Query
Audit
Rural Local Body
Water
Committee

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mGramSeva Application for O&M - Key Features
Dashboards for snapshot of
collections and expenditures to the
Sarpanch / other GP officials
Consumer satisfaction and
assessment quality of services
Easy to share reports over WhatsApp
Details of collection available monthly
for easy management
App is Multilingual & a Digital way to
maintain the revenue and expenditure
records
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Punjabi Localisation - Sample Screens
Create new consumers
Generate new water bill or
View aggregated information on
the dashboards
Revenue Collector - Search
consumer details by a phone
number or a connection ID. View
contact, billing information of
consumer
The Dashboard Provides
Sarpanch/GPs with a Monthly
Snapshot of Collections &
Expenditures. It Enables Quick
Filtering of Connections by
Payment Status

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Operations and Maintenance Tracking
Expense details can be captured
using the expense entry screen
under various expenditure heads
and a bill can be attached.
Expenditure dashboard gives
overview of total bills raised and
unpaid in a particular month of the
year.
Same screen can be used to mark
payments against any pending
bills.

10. Enhanced Coordination & Visibility for All Stakeholders (Citizens,
GPWSCs, DWSS, PSPCL) through the Application & Platform
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Fiscal
Information
Exchange
(iFIX)
Power
Corporation
Finance
Dept
Water
Dept
Revenue Collector
collecting water charges
Rural Water Committee Members at Lodhipur,
Anandpur Sahib, Punjab
Mobile App for managing revenue and
expenditures.
Power Corporation posts electricity bills and
receipts from all the Rural Drinking Water
Projects.
Bills
Paymen
ts
Demand
Receipt
Bills
Payment
Fiscal Sustainability Dashboard available to
District Administration, Finance Department,
Rural Department and Water Department to
track gaps in real time.
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Village
Committee

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Integrated Fiscal Dashboard
Early trends show increase in
collections with more GPWSCs
regularly generating demand.
Early trends show better reporting
of expenditure.
Administrators can compare and identify
where attention is required.
Finance Department can monitor
the arrears and float in real time.
Offers Real-time Insights & Versatile Data Analysis for District Administration, Water Department & Finance Department

12. Progress so far - Division level, Anandpur Sahib
*till 27 Oct, 2023 12
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Progress so far - State Level
*till 27 Oct, 2023

14. Transformations at village level stakeholders
Citizens
Actors
Bill
Collector
Treasurer VWSC
Challenges
Gets notification
of Bill with the
details about the
amount - SMS &
WhatsApp
Get Instant
Receipts showing
demand Period
Instant
Village-Level
Demand
Generation
Recording of
Payment
received
against the
Bills with clear
details of bill
period/s
Easy Consumer
tracking, Print
Bill
Can view up to
date
collections
Easy to Login in
all GPSC
expenses
Can make
recommendati
ons to the
committee for
payments
Scheme level
Cash - Inflow &
Outflow visible
for situation
assessment
Data-Driven
Decisions and
Negotiations
for Genuine
Needs with the
state
departments
Enhanced
Stakeholder
Trust
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15. Examples of Visible & Positive Changes in Experience
- for Citizens
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● Monthly Collections of anywhere from Rs. 50 to Rs. 200 per village per household
● Estimated monthly expenses of approx. Rs12k-20K (Salary, repairs, regular maintenance)

16. Stories From the Ground
Ravi Dutt
GPWSC Secretary, Mindwan
Lowe
Karamjit Kaur
Sarpanch, Majher
Harminder Singh
Sarpanch, Dhahe
“In our small village of only
84 HHs after assessing our
situation, we realised that
we have to hike the per
month charges. We
increased it from ₹ 50/- to ₹
100/- per month per HH”
“We were able to identify
defaulters & send them
notice for not paying along
with 2 weeks time to fulfill
their obligations. After that
small team from the
committee visits defaulters
home & in most cases we
are able to collect the dues”
“We are able to meet all our
internal expenses (except
Power charges) from the
collections we make. With
the surplus funds that had
accrued we were able to buy
a genset”
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Karnail Kaur
Sarpanch, Mahain
“After mGram Seva - our
collections moved up from
<60% to >90% within a
few months”

17. Learnings
● BRCs are Key to Successful Implementation
○ They train/ Handhold the Village Committees - address their concerns
○ Involve them right upfront and address their concerns
● Handover / Takeover - Issues
○ Forming committees and setting them up for Success is important
● Data Purification and Process Streamlining
○ Double check and simplify
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18. JJM - Way forward
● DIGIT iFix Platform and mGramseva app is available for deployment by states,
where Pani Samitis can record the incomes and expenditure
● Further, JJM to set up a National Instance for Nal Jal for states to deploy an O&M
platform by December 2023
● Interested states can intimate JJM Director on the way forward
● NPMU team will support states to adopt
● State JJM teams to train the users based on the SoP
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19. Thank you
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