Checking whether rural piped water schemes are still working

What is shaping water

Water research covers households, utilities, purifier brands and development programmes. Access, quality, reliability and trust in the source decide how people use and pay for water.

• Many households combine several water sources
• Trust in water quality drives purifier adoption
• Utilities are judged on reliability and billing

A state water and sanitation mission, working in Uttar Pradesh & Bihar. Client identity is withheld to protect confidentiality.

Organisation

A state water and sanitation mission

Sector

Water

Team engaged

IT & Development

Services

Government research, Offline data collection (CAPI), Data analytics & dashboards

Many villages had received piped water connections, but reports suggested that some systems had stopped working or supplied water irregularly. The mission needed independent evidence of functionality, not just connection counts. Officials also suspected that some villages reported functionality that did not match residents’ experience.

• Deliver on the brief: checking whether rural piped water schemes are still working.
• Design around the real needs of households.
• Define requirements and success criteria the solution would be tested against.
• Deliver a reliable, secure solution the team can run and extend.

The work focused on 6,000 households.

• households6,000

Audiences we typically reach in water

HouseholdsUtility customersPurifier buyers and ownersCommunity water committeesWASH programme beneficiaries

Coverage: Uttar Pradesh & Bihar. Market: India. 600 villages covered.

• India

An iterative delivery approach: discovery, design, build and test in short cycles, with the client reviewing each step.

1. 1Brief
2. 2Village infrastructure audits
3. 3Household survey
4. 4Insight

Field teams audited pumps, tanks and taps in each village with photo evidence, and surveyed households about supply hours, quality, payments and maintenance. Results were mapped on a dashboard by district and block. Women were interviewed separately where possible, since they collected and managed most household water.

Government researchOffline data collection (CAPI)Data analytics & dashboards

households

6,000

• Users and stakeholders from every affected team took part in discovery workshops and acceptance testing.

• Requirements were gathered through workshops, process walk-throughs and a review of existing systems and data.

• Peer code review on every change
• Automated and manual testing
• User-acceptance testing with the client
• Release checklist and rollback plan

• Usage and performance monitoring after launch
• Defect and support-ticket trends
• Process time before and after

• Most schemes were working, but a significant minority had irregular supply due to unpaid electricity bills and lack of local operators.
• A follow-up round was scheduled to track whether non-functional schemes had been restored.

Measuring functionality rather than coverage revealed the real challenge.

• Build on the core insight: measuring functionality rather than coverage revealed the real challenge.
• Focus effort where the evidence was strongest: most schemes were working, but a significant minority had irregular supply due to unpaid electricity bills and lack of local operators.
• Re-measure after the changes to confirm the effect.

• The mission introduced village operator training and a maintenance fund mechanism.

What changed in the business as a result of the work. Impact is described qualitatively.

• Insight report and management presentation
• Cleaned data file and data tables
• Interactive dashboard
• Evaluation findings with programme recommendations
• Deployed solution with documentation and handover
• Support and maintenance plan

• Repeat the measure after changes are in place to track progress.
• A natural follow-on question: how do households source and store water?