Washington, Aug 27: The World Bank has announced a 181 million dollar credit for a rural water supply and sanitation scheme in Maharashtra. "The Maharashtra rural water supply and sanitation project will directly benefit approximately seven million people in about 2,800 village panchayats, local self government at the village level, with a special focus on women and tribals," a Word Bank press release said here yesterday.

It said Maharashtra faced a severe problem with regard to ensuring a supply of safe and adequate drinking water to its rural population. The state's ground water sources are constrained due to geological factors and variable rainfall with extremes of high monsoon precipitation in some areas, and drought situation in others. In an effort to promote further decentralization of service delivery to rural local governments and communities, the project would focuse on ensuring sustainability of water resources, and on good management rather than on the construction of water supply schemes, meena munshi, the World Bank task leader for the project was quoted as saying.

The project has four main components: community development and infrastructure building; institutional strengthening; sector development and strengthening; and a pilot component consisting of three sub-components whose main aim is to introduce aquifer-based supply and demand management. The credit has a 35-year maturity, with a 10-year grace period, and a 0.75 percent service charge.

Bureau Report