A colleague who lives in the urban area around Rawalpindi told me that about six months back they decided to bore a hole and get their own water for their drinking and other household needs as the water that was coming through the taps was usually not clean: it had a muddy non-transparent appearance and it usually had a strong smell.
The family feared that some of the diseases in their household, especially those that were digestion/stomach and skin related, were linked to the water they were getting through their taps. They used to boil the water that was used for drinking which was cumbersome enough but could not boil the water used for all other purposes. So they bored a hole to a depth of 400 feet and now they pump their own water. The water they are getting from this depth seems to be quite clean. They use it for drinking as well and my colleague claims that the health of their family has improved significantly over the last 6 months.
I asked him if he, his family, or the people in their neighbourhood had done anything about the public water supply before turning to individual solutions. He said that they had complained to the WASA and RDA but there was no change in water quality. He felt WASA did not do anything about the issue. The community talked to their MNA as well. And it seems the MNA did try to get WASA to look at the problem and there was even an announcement that a filter system had been installed but the community felt that the water quality had not changed. The community felt they had no other recourse available and so, eventually the community, on its own, had gone for individual solutions. And now the condition was that though there was a public water supply available, a lot of people living in the area were pumping their own water.
Private solutions are more costly for the individuals and for the society. They have significant impact on the aquifers as well. And, clearly, what a waste of money on the public system that is not being used. We are spending more than double what we should be on supplying water to these people: the cost of the public system and the cost of individual pumping.
But, leaving cost aside, why were the people of the area not listened to? And why did they feel they could not do anything more and could not hold either WASA/RDA or their elected representatives accountable? For a democracy, this should not have been the case. Clearly we, on the government/governance side, are failing in creating the accountability mechanisms that connect the citizens to the governance system of the country. And we, on the citizen side, are also failing to create mechanisms that create avenues for sustained public action. If WASA had not entertained the application, and if the MNA could not do anything, could the community not have continued to organise and think of reaching out to the political party in question, the media or the courts? An individual might not be able to think this but a community of citizens should, with the help of civil society, have avenues for more sustained public action.
Another colleague mentioned that their village (near Sargodha) has a government primary school for boys but the school has only one teacher, and even she does not show up very often, and the school has very poor infrastructure: almost no boundary walls, no functional toilets, no water supply, very poor furniture and other needed amenities. Most parents have to send their children, even the very young ones, to the school in the nearby village.
Again I asked him if his villagers had done anything about the school. He said that the Numberdar had sent applications to and complained to the concerned EDO numerous times, they had even contacted the MPA and MNA of the area, but nothing had been done. So, after putting in these complaints numerous times the villagers had given up on things and had turned to private solutions. And they were just content sending their children to the nearby village. Most parents, who could afford it, were paying Rs 500 per child per month to a minivan owner to drop/pick their children to/from the school in the nearest village. And those who could not afford this either had their children walk or not sent to school.
The villagers, after trying to get heard by the EDO and the MPA/MNA, felt they had no recourse. I asked if there was a NGO/welfare organisation in the village and if they had tried to help? There was a welfare organisation that had been formed by the youth of the village, and they too had approached the EDO but with similar results and they had eventually also given up. It is interesting that people did not think of pooling some resources at the village level for addressing the issue before going for private solutions, but then they might have felt that educational provision is the government’s responsibility.
In both cases, we had a similar outcome. People tried to approach the concerned department responsible for the public service and when they did not succeed in getting their attention, they tried their representatives, and multiple times, but after that they felt that had no other choices. The result, in both cases, was that the people felt that neither the state nor the representatives were interested in addressing their issues and their trust in the state took a beating. But are there ways of still thinking of more avenues? Can the media and/or civil society provide more public fora that might help in creating better accountability and connectivity between the state and the citizen?
The writer is an Associate Professor of Economics at LUMS (currently on leave) and a Senior Advisor at Open Society Foundation (OSF). He can be reached at [email protected]
