(IGP) Special Current Affairs Material for IAS (Pre) 2013

Chapter: Gist of Press Information
Bureau Articles

A national water supply and sanitation programme was
introduced in the social welfare sector way back in 1954.
Essentially, provision of safe drinking water in the
rural areas has been the responsibility of the states.
The Accelerated Rural Water Supply Programme was
introduced in 1972-73 by the Government to assist the states and Union
Territories to accelerate the pace of coverage of drinking water supply.
The entire programme was given a mission approach and the
ambitious project was named the National Drinking Water Mission (NDWM) in
1986.
This National Drinking Water Mission was renamed as Rajiv
Gandhi National Drinking Water Mission which principally works on the
premise of community based demand driven approach instead of the traditional
forced supply driven approach.
Actually, a paradigm shift in the scheme was brought
after a nationwide survey conducted in 1996-97 which revealed that even
poorest of the poor were” willing to participate” in the implementation of
the programmes, and also contribute towards operation and maintenance of the
scheme for drinking water.

It was realised that the objective of supplying safe
drinking water would not be achieved unless the sanitary aspects of water
and the issue of sanitation are addressed together.
Thus, the Centrally Sponsored Rural Sanitation Programme
was christened with the overall objective of improving the quality of life
of the rural people. It was envisaged that the two programmes, the
Accelerated Rural Water Supply Programme or the Rajiv Gandhi National
Drinking Water Mission and the Rural Sanitation Programme implemented
simultaneously would help break the circle of disease, morbidity and poor
health, resulting from water borne diseases.