Why community participation is critical for water safety

This article is authored by Ankur Garg, India Country Director, EAII Advisors.

Water has always been more than a resource. It is a foundation for health, dignity, livelihoods and human development. For rural India, the transformation underway through the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) is one of the country's most ambitious efforts to bring reliable piped drinking water to every household.

Drinking water (For Representation)

The scale of this transformation is remarkable. When JJM was launched in 2019, only 3.23 crore rural households, 16.7%, had tap-water connections. By March 2026, this had risen to about 15.82 crore households, or more than 81% of rural households.

But as India moves from expanding access to strengthening water services, the next question is equally important. How do we ensure that the water flowing from these taps remains safe, reliable and trusted?

The answer lies not only in infrastructure or technology, but in the people and institutions that sustain them.

The Government of India's vision goes beyond constructing infrastructure. It seeks to ensure drinking water in adequate quantity, prescribed quality, and on a regular, long-term basis, with gram panchayats and rural communities at the centre of planning, implementation, ownership, and operation and maintenance of in-village water systems.

This marks an important shift in how we think about water. A tap connection is an asset. A functioning water system is a service. And a community that understands, monitors and takes ownership of that service is what makes it sustainable.

India's progress in expanding tap-water access has created an unprecedented opportunity to focus more deeply on water quality and functionality.

The 2024 JJM Functionality Assessment, covering nearly 2.38 lakh households across 19,812 villages, offers an important reminder. While 98.1% of surveyed households had tap connections, only 76% of household tap connections met the assessment's combined criteria for functionality, considering quantity, quality and regularity of supply.

This distinction matters. Water infrastructure can be built, but its benefits depend on what happens after construction. Is the system operated correctly? Is water quality monitored? Are treatment systems maintained? Are chlorine supplies available? Do local institutions know how to respond when something goes wrong? And, perhaps most importantly, do households trust the water enough to use it for drinking and cooking?

These are not questions that technology can answer on its own. They require local capacity, accountability and participation.

Consider the experience of Bhavani, a pump operator in Enamadala village in Andhra Pradesh's Eluru district, who had worked there for 15 years.

Before the installation of an In-Line Chlorination (ILC) device, which is fitted directly into the water supply system to chlorinate water and ensure safe drinking water, Bhavani had to climb the overhead tank every 15 days to manually add bleaching powder, a difficult and unsafe process that also led to uneven dosing. At the time, only about 30% of households trusted the water for drinking.

With ILC introduced under the guidance of Andhra Pradesh's Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Department, Bhavani received hands-on training and became a local water-quality champion. When residents were hesitant about the chlorine smell, she went door to door, explained why it indicated treated water, and built confidence through her own example. Drinking-water use rose from around 30% to 40%, and has continued to grow.

Her experience also illustrates why women's participation in technical water-management roles matters. When women who are already trusted within their communities are equipped with technical skills and institutional support, they can become powerful agents of change.

The journey from a treated water supply to water being accepted and consumed by households is often less visible, but no less important.

In Mantada village, Krishna district, Narayanaamma, an ASHA worker with 12 years of experience, became a bridge between the water system and the families she served. Even after an ILC device was installed, many households continued to boil water for hours or purchase RO water, as the smell and taste associated with chlorine reinforced existing concerns.

Narayanaamma visited all more than 50 households under her coverage. She spoke directly with families, addressed misconceptions, extended her outreach to schools and the anganwadi centre, and worked with other frontline health workers. The result was a gradual shift in behaviour and acceptance.

Community participation also requires leadership at the village level, and partnership is what makes community ownership possible. None of these stories should be viewed as the achievement of a single organisation. They represent an ecosystem.

The Government of India provides the national vision and framework. State departments and district administrations translate that vision into implementation. Gram panchayats and village institutions provide local ownership. This approach is increasingly reflected in JJM's own evolution. The government has stated that the extended phase of the Mission will focus on the quality of infrastructure and operation and maintenance of rural piped-water supply schemes through Jan Bhagidhari, people's participation. Technical partners can strengthen this ecosystem by bringing evidence, technology, training, monitoring systems and implementation support.

Evidence Action's India Safe Water programme, through its technical partner EAII Advisors, has worked with government counterparts to support the use of in-line chlorination in rural piped-water systems in Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and other states. ILC treats water directly within the piped system as it flows, helping replace irregular manual chlorination with a more standardised treatment approach.

In Andhra Pradesh, implementation has combined device installation with operator training, daily free residual chlorine and total residual chlorine monitoring, gram panchayat coordination, community awareness, household interactions and ongoing technical support.

As India enters the next phase of rural water transformation, community participation should be treated as a core component of water-system performance, not as an awareness activity added at the end of a project.

This is already happening at scale. By February 2024, more than 5.18 lakh Village Water and Sanitation Committees (VWSCs) and Pani Samitis had been constituted under JJM, with at least 50% women members, while more than 5.06 lakh Village Action Plans had been developed.

Water-quality monitoring is also becoming increasingly community-led. By March 2026, 24.8 lakh women had been trained to test drinking water using field test kits, and communities had tested 47.59 lakh water samples during 2025–26 alone.

Every village needs people who can champion water quality. A pump operator who understands treatment and monitoring; a Jal Mitra who can support the community and troubleshoot problems; a VWSC member who asks whether water quality is being monitored regularly; an ASHA worker who explains the link between safe water and health; an anganwadi worker who teaches children and mothers about safe water practices; a sarpanch who makes water quality a governance priority; and households that understand that safe water is a shared responsibility.

These people form the human infrastructure around the physical infrastructure. Their contribution is often quiet and rarely captured in headline statistics. Yet it is their daily work, checking, testing, explaining, listening, reporting and responding, that determines whether the benefits of public investment endure.

(The views expressed are personal)

This article is authored by Ankur Garg, India Country Director, EAII Advisors.