Decentralised Public Finance for WASH: Policy and Practice Learnings
Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability, IRC, and WaterAid India are jointly engaged in an initiative to track and analyse public spending for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) at the local level. The initiative is based on two core projects viz. Watershed - Capacity Building Support for Civil Society Organisations to Leverage Water and Sanitation Programmes in Bihar and Odisha supported by IRC and Tracking and Analysing Budget Allocations and Utilisation for WASH by Rural Local Bodies, supported by WaterAid India, using the Life Cycle Cost Approach covering two districts each from both the States namely Gaya and Samastipur from Bihar and Nuapada and Ganjam from Odisha.
The projects tracked budgets for WASH allocated and spent at Gram Panchayat (GP) level, from various sources such as 14th Finance Commission (14th FC) grants, State Finance Commission (SFC) grants, and grants for WASH from various line departments and their programmes. Understanding the situation of decentralised public financing for WASH in communities and social sector institutions such as school, anganwadi centres and health centres while enhancing the capacities of CSOs to access and assess budget related data on WASH were some of the major objectives of the projects.
The series presents the key learnings from the projects, puts forth a possible way ahead in order to make decentralised budget and financing arrangements for WASH services a priority in the States of Odisha and Bihar. The series includes the following publications.
Consolidated Policy and Practice Learnings
WASH Schemes and Fund Flow Architecture - Samastipur
WASH Schemes and Fund Flow Architecture - Ganjam
Tracking Budgets for Rural WASH - Bihar
