Continuous, piped water supply to one million residents in Hubballi-Dharwad, including to 160,000 slum-dwellers
NEW DELHI, May 24, 2016 – The Government of India, the Government of Karnataka and the World Bank today signed a US$ 100 million loan agreement for the Karnataka Urban Water Supply Modernization Project (KUWSMP) to support the efforts of Hubballi-Dharwad, the second largest urban center in Karnataka, to become one of the first Indian cities to provide citywide, continuous, piped water supply to its residents.
The project, signed today, will help bring clean water to one million citizens of Hubballi-Dharwad, including 160,000 people who live in slums and currently depend upon public standposts or private vendors for water. The project will finance physical investments in the water supply system for the twin cities, and support city authorities in strengthening systems and procedures required to sustainably close the current water service delivery gaps.
“The Government of India recognizes the importance of 24x7 water supply and has made it a Service Level Benchmark for water providers. This project will support the Government of Karnataka’s efforts to provide clean water on a continuous basis and scale up the 24x7 water service to cover all parts of the twin cities of Hubballi-Dharwad,” said Raj Kumar, Joint Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Government of India.
The credit agreement for the project was signed by Raj Kumar, Joint Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs on behalf of the Government of India; V Ponnuraj, Managing Director, Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation (KUIDFC), on behalf of the Government of Karnataka; and Michael Haney, Operations Adviser, World Bank India on behalf of the World Bank.
“No major city in fast-urbanizing India provides its residents with continuous piped water supply, a situation that particularly affects the poor, women and children, who spend time and money to secure water for their basic needs,” said Michael Haney, World Bank’s Operations Adviser in India. “The Government of Karnataka and the city authorities of Hubballi-Dharwad are trying to change this reality. The World Bank is pleased to support their efforts to ensure that all the citizens of the twin cities, including the poor who usually remain under-served in most urban areas, have access to clean water in their homes.”
Most Indian towns and cities supply water intermittently. According to the Ministry of Urban Development, only 50 percent of consumers in most cities have household connections to the pipe system, while the poor are typically not connected at all, and have to pay significantly higher prices to purchase water from private vendors. Women and children bear the cost of coping with intermittent supply by spending time collecting water from public standposts or waiting hours for water to become available.
The Government of Karnataka has acknowledged this challenge and has undertaken significant efforts to improve urban water service levels in select cities, most recently through a World Bank-supported pilot project which provided continuous water supply to about 230,000 people in select wards of the cities of Belagavi, Kalaburagi and Hubballi-Dharwad. The government now intends to scale up this level of service delivery to the entire city of Hubballi-Dharwad, the second largest city of Karnataka.
Under the KUWSMP, the Hubballi Dharwad Municipal Corporation has hired a professional water supply operating company to help make the necessary improvements to its water supply system, and to manage the refurbished system through a 12-year contract in accordance with strict performance criteria. The municipality will retain ownership of the water supply assets and control of the service delivery set up. The project will help the Hubballi-Dharwad Municipal Corporation set up a city-level water utility that will take over water supply operations from the professional operating company at the end of its contract period.
The municipality will control tariff-setting in accordance with guidelines laid down by the state Government of Karnataka, which include provisions to ensure that the water tariff for lifeline consumption (up to 18KL per month) is kept at levels that poorer households can afford. The project will also ensure that poorer households are able to avail of the improved services by subsidizing household-level water connections.
“The Government of Karnataka has laid down strict contractual provisions to hold the operating company accountable for improving levels of service to customers, whilst at the same time providing incentives to ensure that the improvements are achieved and sustained in the most cost-effective manner and do not strain the city’s finances,” said Bill Kingdom, Lead Water and Sanitation Specialist and the project’s Task Team Leader for the World Bank. “In parallel, the project will help the city of Hubballi-Dharwad establish institutions and financing mechanisms that will support sustainability of water services to the city in the long term.”
The loan, from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), has a 5-year grace period, and a maturity of 24 years.
