As per Sample Registration Survey (SRS), 2019 estimates, the infant mortality rate in Bihar has been recorded as 29 deaths per 1,000 live births, which is a reduction by three points from the 2018 estimates and is one point better than the national average of 30 deaths per 1,000 live births. Similarly, as per National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) estimates, mortality rate for children under 5 years of age stands at 56.4 deaths per 1,000 live births.
While this success indicates better maternal and child health services in the State, it also indicates better availability of other public health services such as safe water, sanitation, and hygiene.
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Bihar has been able to provide tap water to 1.56 crore households out of the targeted 1.72 crore rural households. This is a remarkable achievement in the last five years considering the low coverage of 3% with which the State started. Bihar has provided the highest number of tap connections in the last few years among all the States in India.
This momentous achievement was possible due to strong political leadership that resulted in the implementation of the State government scheme, Mukhya Mantri Peyjal Nishchaya Yojana, which was launched as a part of the seven resolves of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to ensure good governance. Structural changes in programme implementation were initiated to divide the responsibility of water provisioning between the Public Health Engineering Department and Panchayati Raj Department. The State government has also promised a better service benchmark of 70 litre per person per day by tapping the available ground water.
Sustainable source of water is an important determinant in the success of safe water schemes. To ensure source sustainability, the State Government of Bihar has launched the jal-jeevan-hariyali mission for ground water recharge and efficient use of it through changing crop pattern, irrigation methods, large scale plantation and revival of traditional water harvesting and recharge structures.
This year’s theme for World Water Day is “Groundwater: making the invisible visible”. Making ground water visible requires a decentralised effort by working with the community structures. Ground water, the main source for domestic use and agriculture in the State, requires concerted efforts in making it visible. The adolescents and youth groups in the community can be empowered and involved in educating community members on groundwater availability, its optimum usage and in conducting climate centric water budgeting.
In the last decade, the State Government of Bihar has been experimenting with remarkable success in implementing various initiatives that provide women a chance to come forward to have a democratic dialogue in water provisioning. The government has made provisions to include at least three women members in the ward level committees that are formed to manage ward-level piped water schemes across 1,14,691 rural wards in the State.
Today, there are more than three lakh women who are a part of these committees. Further, more than 25,000 women are also working as pump operators especially in areas where implementation is done by ward implementation and management committee (WIMCs). These women are leading from the front the great turnaround story of drinking water in the State.
Nafisa Binte Shafique is CFO, UNICEF Office for Bihar
