National rural drinking water monitoring: progress and challenges with India's IMIS database

Abstract

National drinking water programs seek to address monitoring challenges that include self-reporting, data sampling, data consistency and quality, and sufficient frequency to assess the sustainability of water systems. India stands out for its comprehensive rural water database known as Integrated Management Information System (IMIS), which conducts annual monitoring of drinking water coverage, water quality, and related program components from the habitation level to the district, state, and national levels. The objective of this paper is to evaluate IMIS as a national rural water supply monitoring platform. This is important because IMIS is the official government database for rural water in India, and it is used to allocate resources and track the results of government policies. After putting India's IMIS database in an international context, the paper describes its detailed structure and content. It then illustrates the geographic patterns of water supply and water quality that IMIS can present, as well as data analysis issues that were identified. In particular, the fifth section of the paper identifies limitations on the use of state-level data for explanatory regression analysis. These limitations lead to recommendations for improving data analysis to support national rural water monitoring and evaluation, along with strategic approaches to data quality assurance, data access, and database functionality.

Fieldwork-based determination of design priorities for point-of-use drinking water quality sensors for use in resource-limited environments

“…Conversely, chemical contamination is generally localized due to the heterogeneity of its geogenic and anthropogenic causes [60][61][62][63][64]. Furthermore, we assumed that the most likely use cases for improved point-of-use testing would be as part of government-mandated water quality testing, either for routine testing [65][66][67][68] or for additional testing such as the investigation of outbreaks [69] or exposure pathways [70], as the government remains the largest custodian of water as a public good in India [71].…”

Conjoint assessment of rural water security and system sustainability in Nagpur, India

“…Through the track of water security programmes in India (Ray, 2016), it is clear that the Government of India has, over the years, executed major policy and institutional reforms [like the formation of regulatory bodies and integrated management information system (IMIS) database], to provide safe, adequate and sustainable supply of water to every rural inhabitant (Wescoat et al , 2016). However, Schiff (2021) underscores that the high level of fragmentation between local, state and federal water stakeholders still poses a key hindrance.…”

Governance Arrangements for the Scaling Up of Small-Scale Wastewater Treatment and Reuse Systems – Lessons From India

“…Such a platform would be well aligned with the current digitalization trend in India. Digitalization is increasingly implemented and fostered by the Government of India, for example in these initiatives: Digital India Mission, Swachh Barat Toilets with GIS tracking, consent management platform in the state of Tamil Nadu, National rural drinking water monitoring (Wescoat et al, 2016), etc.…”