People First: How Odisha’s Drink from Tap Mission Quenched Every Thirst

Every year, scores of people all over the world die from waterborne diseases caused byack of access to clean drinking water. In this background and in a country asarge as India, can anyone even think of drinking water directly from a tap? The answer isikely to be a resounding ‘No’. However, one state in India has achieved this seemingly impossible feat—Odisha. From the time when the state was infamous for drought and poverty, it is now providing international standard drinking water toakhs of homes in different parts of the state, with an aim to do so for every household. G. Mathi Vathanan, a career bureaucrat, hased the Odisha government’s revolutionary Drink from Tap mission. Pure drinking water is now available round-the-clock in every home in Odisha’s Drink from Tap cities. Ground-breaking reforms backed by strong political and administrative commitment have proved that there is no need to privatize if governments have the will to change with a ‘people first’ approach. The success of Odisha’s public water supply management model has been recognized internationally and many other states and cities are now replicating it. People First provides a robust blueprint and a step-by-step guide to the much-awarded Drink from Tap initiative.