ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the effectiveness of community-led projects in handling an important public good of drinking water in the rural context. For this, primary data on roles and responsibilities of Village Water Supply and Sanitation Committees (VWSCs) constituted by the local government in the tribal villages of Odisha in managing community-led piped water supply projects was collected. The chapter addresses the following questions. How do VWSCs function in the monitoring and maintenance of water supply projects, especially during the post-implementation period to make the projects sustainable? How did VWSCs effectively build up social capital (reciprocity, trust, and cooperation) for the successful management of water supply projects? Does the introduction of decentralisation enhance the capacity of the rural people to maintain water delivery system? What is the future sustainability of drinking water supply within the present frame of decentralised governance? How do VWSCs undertake the panoptical (supervisory) role and how did it bring behavioural changes among the villagers? The chapter identifies the post-implementation challenges faced by the VWSCs to maintain the projects.
