The Andhra Pradesh Urban Services For The Poor (APUSP) Project is an innovative partnership project of GoAP and the United Kingdom, being implemented in the 32 Class 1 towns of the State with a goal of achieving sustained reduction in vulnerability and poverty of the Urban Poor in Andhra Pradesh. The key issues confronting the APUSP towns are severely stressed, degenerated, encroached and mismanaged water bodies; extensive leakage and pilferage in water supply systems leading to inefficient energy management practices and increased cost of water; and lack of effective communication strategy to the citizens regarding cost of production, its O&M expenses, water conservation etc. Graduating to continuous water supply, plugging leakages, improving efficiency, and improving quality and reliability are some of the initiatives required for improved service delivery. Comprehensive water supply studies had been commissioned in 11 APUSP towns with a view to provide a comprehensive master plan for water supply improvement for the next 30 years. Energy conservation and efficiency improvement measures have been initiated in water pumping, and saving precious energy, water and money for the ULBs. Additional energy conservation initiatives are in the pipeline, which results in reduced CO2 emissions and the consequent reduction in global warming. Cutting edge training has been initiated to the staff and junior engineers to conserve energy and improve O&M of water pumping stations. An O&M plan is also being finalized by all the towns, which will present an advanced prioritized action plan for O&M improvement. A demand-responsive and participatory approach was adopted for identifying and prioritizing onsite water supply requirements by the primary stakeholders. Since only about 25% of BPL families are covered by individual and public taps, the GoAP had evolved a policy of issuing connections to BPL households at Rs. 1,200 per tap to be paid in lumpsum or in 12 monthly installments. There are plans to further reduce the costs to Rs. 1,000 per connection to poor families who could not afford to pay the road cutting charges.

• Improved access to potable water for the poor (no information on increase in no. of connections)
• Vulnerability to water borne diseases is expected to be reduced
• Reduced energy costs (no information on amount of savings)

Effective monitoring of the process leads to sustainability of the project.

For further details, contact:

Mr. Janardhan Reddy, IAS
Project Coordinator
APUSP