Strategies for Improving Rural Domestic Water Supply in Maharashtra

Abstract

This chapter systematically examines which regions of Maharashtra state will be able to provide sustainable rural water supply based on local groundwater-based sources, which regions would require augmentation of the existing sources from surface water from within the region or outside, and which regions would need to depend entirely on bulk water imports for ensuring drinking water security. For the analysis, it develops four regional typologies based on certain physical (hydrological, geohydrological, climatic, and geomorphological features) and socio-economic (gross and net cropped area, the total area under gravity irrigation, and extent of dependence of the population on groundwater-based schemes for rural water supply provisioning) characteristics of each district, and uses the ‘effects’ these characteristics have on the performance of existing rural water supply schemes to identify the types of schemes that will be sustainable for each typology. It then presents the tentative cost of implementing the augmentation schemes and also examines the cost-effectiveness of the interventions against tanker water supply.