Why some village water and sanitation committees are better than others : a study of Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh

Study of village water and sanitation committees in two World Bank-assisted rural water supply and sanitation projects in the
states of Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh, India, by the Water and Sanitation Program.South Asia, in order to understand the dynamics of good governance at the village level. The projects in Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh were designed on the premise that establishing VWSCs would lead to more effective management at the village level. The study concludes that the key features of VWSCs are transparency, participation, inclusion and ownership, which increase community cooperation and support for the project. Findings suggest that the most important feature is transparency.the more individual households are aware of the scheme, understand the tariff collection process and attend committee meetings, the higher the overall effectiveness of the project. This note has not discussed the long-term sustainability of VWSCs and the projects. While one can assume that consumer satisfaction and effective tariff collection are both indicators of sustainability, there are other issues at stake in the Indian
context. A key issue worth exploring in depth in a future study is the nature of the complex relationship between VWSCs and gram panchayats.