Hand Pump Mistry - Ghatol Block

CASE: HAND PUMP MISTRIES

Name : kamlesh naik

Roll No : 11201021

Date : 08.08.2011

Case facts: -

This case is of Ghatol block which is one of the 8 blocks of Bhanswada district and also about suggesting a proper compensation mechanism which could be implemented for all 8 blocks of Bhanswada district. Shri Bhandari is BDO of Ghatol block.

Traditionally people of this village depend on conventional water which have been very unreliable so the Public Health Department installed hand pumps. At first Government department went on constructing tube wells and installing hand pumps thus within a couple of years due to lack of focus on maintenance more than 80% of them had become in-operative. As a result the Government started to focus on repair and maintenance of hand pumps.

A three-tier system was introduced by UNICEF for maintaining the hand pumps which was being approved by technocrats of all the state governments.

Detail of how a three tier system works are as follows: -

First Tier Second Tier Third Tier

Consist of a village level hand pump care taker who is trained and is also given some spanners to keep nuts and bolts of hand pumps tight.

A block-level inspector cum mechanic from Public Health Department who regularly checks 50 hand pumps and carries out minor repairs above ground, if any. A district mobile maintenance team consisting of 5 men (driver, mechanic, two helpers and a mason) (one for every 500/600 hand pumps) under a junior engineer attends to all major problems.

Above mentioned system was installed by all states except for Rajasthan. Government of Rajasthan did not install this system and came out with a different idea of Hand Pump Mistries (HPM). Under this scheme rural youths from economically poor backgrounds with mechanical aptitude were identified and they were trained under a scheme called TRYSEM. Main idea behind the concept of HPM was to hand over the repair and maintenance to community and at the same time reduce governments expenditure. There were around 940 hand pumps in the 222 villages of Ghatol block which were allotted to 24 hand pump mistries. Compensation of Rs 200 was paid to HPM's out of which Rs.132 was service charge and Rs.68 was for spare parts. Every month mistry had to submit a certificate verifying satisfactory performance of his hand pumps in order to claim monthly service charge. Major benefit of this scheme was that it reduced the cost of maintenance and at the same time it also provides employment to rural youth and also helps in quick repair of the pumps as mistries were allotted hand pumps which were not too far from the place they lived.

Experiment carried out by UNICEF brought out certain flaws in this system which is listed below:-

* Minor component of the spare parts was bought by the mistries and as they were likely to buy low quality parts to save money in the spare part component of their compensation thus poor quality spare parts lead to frequent breakdowns of hand pumps.

* The compensation package was fixed four years ago and was not as per current time.

Some BDOs were of view to make the spare parts (major and minor) available at the block level to ensure good quality which might in turn reduce the frequency of breakdown of the hand pumps. But the mistries strictly opposed to it as they were able to save on some money from spare part component of the compensation package due to less breakdowns of the new hand pumps. Also they complained of the hassle of going to the block office every time they need a part

After last meeting of BDO's Mr. Bhandari was asked to look into the following related issues: -

Indiscipline among hand-pump mistries Co-operative society of mistries Shifting to three tier system

There were some complaints against the mistries about charging the users whenever there was a case of breakdown * Is forming a Co-operative viable in Bhanswada district which would take the responsibilities of maintaining the hand pumps. E.g.-Ajmer dist. * Should Government be recommended to implement 3-tier system.

* Cost may be increased by 50% after implementation

SITUATION ANALYSIS:-

Profile of Banswada District: -

Block Area (hect.) No.of hand pumps Area per hand pumps in hect.

Ghatol 77486 940 83

Ghadi 71055 879 80