Faced with a growing water crisis, Delhi govt hard-sells Water ATMs

The response to Water ATMs installed in a slum colony in North-West Delhi as part of a pilot project may have been less than enthusiastic but that is not stopping the Delhi government from scaling up the experiment. This week Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor (L-G) Najeeb Jung approved a proposal to set up 500 new water ATMs in the Capital. The move comes as part of a slew of measures that have been announced in recent days by the L-G to meet Delhi’s growing water troubles. Delhi has been under President’s rule ever since the Arvind Kejriwal-led government resigned in February. This summer’s continuing power and water crisis has turned into a political nightmare for the new BJP government which is facing growing public anger. [caption id=“attachment_1581199” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Ibnlive[/caption] As per an official statement from the Delhi government, the L-G, earlier this week “approved, in principle, the replication of the existing model of Water ATMs running at Savda Ghevra in 500 locations in a phased manner” and directed the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) to ‘fast-track’ the installation of ten Water ATMs in South West Delhi that were approved in April. The 500 new Water ATMs will be set up in ‘water deficient areas’ that have been identified by the DJB. However, the DJB spokesperson insists “there is no water crisis in the city” and that the 500 new Water ATMs are designed to serve as an “added facility”. Asked where these Water ATMs will be located, the DJB official said, “It will primarily be in resettlement colonies. And also in unauthorised colonies where, for one reason or another, we cannot lay a pipe network. For instance, in Sangam Vihar we cannot lay a pipe network although we have a scheme ready because that is an unauthorised colony on forest land.” But Water ATMs, going by results of the pilot project in Savda Ghevra, don’t seem to have too many takers among residents of a resettlement colony. Savda Ghevra, a slum resettlement colony, about 40 km from Central Delhi, has population by over 8,500 families. The colony has no piped water supply and depends on the DJB to supply drinking water through tankers and on private bore-wells for non-drinking purposes. As part of the pilot project that launched in November last year, the DJB in collaboration with a private operator, Piramal Water Private Ltd, set up a decentralised drinking water plant (by sinking a bore-well) and installed 15 Water ATMs at different locations in the resettlement colony. Piramal Water Private Ltd is a for-profit social enterprise that operates under the brand-name Sarvajal. The Water ATMs serve as 24/7 water vending machines and require customers to buy rechargeable ‘smartcards’ that are sold by the private operator for Rs 100. Customers can draw up to 20 litres of water per transaction at a price of 15 paise or 30 paise per litre, depending on the location of the Water ATM. The stand-alone water kiosks are solar-powered and have a capacity of 500 litres but are filled up to 300-400 litres to “ensure complete use of water and to prevent the water from getting stale”, according to details provided by the DJB on the project. But eight months after the pilot project was launched, only about 1,000 smart cards have been sold in Savda Ghevra that has over 8,500 families. “The challenge in a resettlement colony, where quality is not a priority, is to change mind-sets. We have been educating the residents. We tell them that if they choose this water they can save on medical bills. There is inertia and people don’t want to come out of their comfort zone. They feel they are anyway getting tanker water supply and so why go for something new,” says Amit Mishra, chief operations manager of the Sarvajal project in Delhi. The DJB concedes that the pilot project has not been a huge success. “I wouldn’t say the pilot has been very successful. It has been successful in terms of what we set out to achieve — providing an alternate means of clean drinking water at a nominal cost,” said a DJB official. Mishra insists residents of the colony have ‘accepted’ the project. “There are two factors working in our favour. The DJB supplies water as and when tankers are available. Or it may be that tankers supply water at a specific time. The Water ATMs, on the other hand, are 24/7. The second factor is quality of water. I’m not saying DJB water distributed via tankers is not consumable but when the filtration plant is present at the resettlement colony itself, there is no compromise on the quality of water on account of distribution. All the Water ATMs are cloud connected and if for any reason the water quality is compromised, the ATM will not dispense water,” says Mishra. But in a resettlement colonies, which like Sarva Ghevra are made up of largely daily wage workers, it is only natural that the majority of the population will prefer the free DJB water to water they have to pay for. A fact that is borne out by the number of smart cards sold at pilot project. Yet Mishra remains bullish about the prospects of water ATMs in Delhi’s slum and resettlement colonies. “It is a slow process. Changing mind-sets is not an overnight exercise. Any launch in slow. And yet within eight months, we have gone from 0 to 1,000 cards.” While DJB maintains the Water ATMs are not a long-term solution, the private players say the model is viable only in the long-term. “We are putting up Water ATMs in places where we are not able to supply piped network immediately because to lay a pipe you need to have sufficient water to sustain it. It is therefore certainly not a long-term solution. Certainly not,” said the DJB spokesperson. However, private operators like Sarvajal don’t seem share that view. “This model is not viable in the short-term. It is a volume game. When we say long-term, we are looking at ten years… DJB has centralised system and it distributes water through pipelines. In resettlement colonies, there is no network of pipelines and that is why it makes sense to have decentralised plants within the colony and distribute to people living there,” says Mishra. Given the lukewarm response the pilot project has received from resettlement colony residents, does it make sense to be replicating the experiment on a larger scale? “It is a good idea to scale up. If one product is launched in one particular area, it will have a limited impact. But we should not categorise the pilot as a success or a failure based on that particular area’s response. Five hundred Water ATMs might look large scale at this moment. But will the L-G cover all of Delhi with 500 Water ATMs? My answer is absolutely no. Going by Delhi’s size, it will take 50,000 water ATMs to touch all of it. Going by that, 500 is not a large number. But it is still a good sample,” says Mishra.