Dear Mughal and all
Sorry for my late reply. For over a month I was roaming in different states for some projects and therefore not able to come to the Forum. I got message from Elizabeth yesterday about the pending response.
A comparative assessment of different sanitation ( toilet) technologies is attached. Detail of all the technologies are not available in a single book. Detail of some of the technologies are available in the book A guide to the development of on-site sanitation, by Franceys, R. Pickford j. & Reed, R. (1992) World Health Organization, (WHO), Geneva. Details of technologies on Twin pit pour flush toilets, family size biogas plant linked with toilkets and Balram model toilets are available in the book - Handbook on Technical options for on-site sanitation for rural areas, that was released by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Govt. of India in May 2012, link-http://www.indiawaterportal.org/sites/indiawaterportal.org/files/handbook-on-_technical-options-for-on-site-sanitation-modws-2012_0.pdf
Detail of ECOSAN / UDDT toilet is available in many books. If you require specific information on any technology kindly inform. I will try to reply.

Regards
Pawan

Dear Pawan,

Your contention: "There are other affordable technologies for household toilets and decentralized waste water treatment technologies, can be selected depending on socio-economic and hydro-geological conditions of the targeted areas." is interesting. What is more interesting is that you have linked those technologies with socio-economic and hydro-geological conditions.

Could you kindly highlight those affordable technologies, in details? I'm sure, those details will be highly beneficial to us all. Your post might become protracted - in that case, I suggest that you put the details in the attachments. Thank you

Regards,

F H Mughal

Dear Aasim

I hope the Performance Assessment under your project is for technology systems not for the management system in a local body. However, for an outcome of any technology system, management system of local body is equally or more important.
Only leach pit and septic tanks are mentioned in the presentation Paper. There are other affordable technologies for household toilets and decentralized waste water treatment technologies, can be selected depending on socio-economic and hydro-geological conditions of the targeted areas.
What are the criteria for technical assessment of a septic tank system? I feel technical criteria should be the characteristics of effluent. The paper mentions only management criteria- cleaning interval of septic tank and disposal of septage.
For septage management, only unplanted sludge drying beds is mentioned. Treatment options of filtrate from such beds are not mentioned. Performance assessment of all options of decentralized waste water treatment and septage management will be useful information in selecting suitable technology for local body.
Regards

Pawan

Dear Mr. F.H Mughal,

Thanks for showing interest in our project, yes you have rightly mentioned that this system has its application in all the urban local bodies (around 400 +) of Gujarat and Maharasthra. Also, septic tanks in India are considered as an integral part of the urban sanitation systems. As per recent census of India 2011 information around 38 % of urban households in India are dependent on septic tanks.

As our system is meant for outcome indicators health impacts are not included. Also as hygiene is not captured as most ULBs do not have direct program's for that. Open defecation is estimated indirectly from information on household and community toilets as the system is based on data from the suppliers which are urban local governments. Unit costs and complaint redressal are captured. These details can be viewed for each city on our web portal.

We will definitely keep you all posted regarding our project milestones and activities

Regards,
Aasim

Dear Er. Aasim Mansuri,

The PAS system is interesting and is fairly comprehensive. As I understand, the system has its application in all urban local bodies in Gujarat and Maharashtra. What were the results and outcomes, and how the assessment enabled improvement in service delivery?

PAS is for “urban” water supply and sanitation, but some of the components (e.g., septic tanks) shows that it includes “rural” water supply and sanitation, as well.

Please comments on the absence of the following aspects:

Incidence of waterborne diseases – reduction of the diseases can be a good indicator

Hygiene – hygiene is an important adjunct of water and sanitation

Impact on reduction of open defecation (OD) – Reduction of OD cases is a useful indicator

Unit production costs ($/cubic meter of water) – Reduction in unit production costs in water treatment reflects efficiency

Stakeholders’ satisfaction – Increased percentage of stakeholders’ satisfaction, or conversely, increased complaints from the consumers, constitute a useful indicator

Please keep us posted on the milestones achieved in future.

Good luck!

Regards,

F H Mughal

Dear All,

We have recently uploaded two presentations on Susana Library for you all to refer and get an update regarding our PAS project activities.

One presentation briefly describes the activities that we have taken up in the PAS project for last 5 years and other presentation briefly describes various urban sanitation activities that have been undertaken by the PAS project.

You will find this presentations on the following link: www.susana.org/en/resources/library/details/2091

Please do let us know if you have any feedback / comments / queries.

Regards,
Aasim

Dear Kim,

Thank you for your interest in PAS project of CEPT University.

The indicators that we have been using in our work are mentioned in this link www.pas.org.in (go in framework section of performance assessment tab). More recently, we are developing indicators for onsite sanitation assessment and we will be sharing this soon. We will be happy to receive your comments. Hopefully, the post-2015 sanitation monitoring can use some of these indicators.

Regarding shared toilets, we are trying out this idea in a few small and medium towns in Maharashtra, India. We strongly believe that shared sanitation facilities provided by public agencies are not viable. Its life cycle cost is much higher and it is not safe. Instead, we promote one family- one toilet concept. However, in dense communities, where there is no space in the house for a toilet, we advocate provision of a toilet for 2-3 families, which is collectively owned and maintained by them. In the towns, where we are working, we have designed an incentive subsidy scheme, where a family without a toilet is given a small grant by the local government. So if more households are willing to share the toilet the subsidy amount per toilet will increase.

Regards,
Aasim

Dear Aasim,
Thanks for introducing your project, which is an exciting long-term and large-scale effort. Would be interesting to hear about some of the insights you have gained so far. Hence, here’s a set of questions that I hope you can comment on.

Regarding the performance monitoring, what are the indicators you have applied to follow-up sanitation? What are your strategies for collecting data? Have you implemented any innovating ways of monitoring? This is a most relevant international matter today, since the Post-2015 process is ongoing with new Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) coming up soon. There is a need to develop indicators that actually measure the sustainability of sanitation systems and allow for feasible monitoring mechanisms.

I’m also interested to know more about your 2-3 family-shared toilets. What is your learning from this approach? For example, how do you group families? Or do you only involve relatives? How do they manage ownership and O&M? What type of sanitation systems are you implementing/considering?

Best regards,
Kim

Dear All,

Here are some details on the Performance Assessment System (PAS) Project that aims to develop appropriate methods and tools to measure, monitor and improve delivery of water and sanitation in urban India. The Project has three major components of performance measurement, monitoring and improvement. It covers all urban local bodies (ULBs) in Gujarat and Maharashtra.

Looking forward to discussions on the forum.

Title of grant: Performance Assessment Systems (PAS) for Urban Water Supply and Sanitation

Name of lead organization: CEPT University

Primary contact at lead organization: Dr. Meera Mehta / Dr. Dinesh Mehta

Grantee location: Ahmedabad, Gujarat , INDIA

Developing country where the research is being or will be tested: INDIA

Short description of the project:
Lack of reliable and updated information about operational and financial performance of urban water supply and sanitation services poses a key challenge in improving access to the poor and increasing efficiency of service delivery in India. New investments in urban water and sanitation are made, without proper performance assessment of existing system

The Performance Assessment System (PAS) Project has developed appropriate methods and tools to measure, monitor and improve delivery of water and sanitation in urban India. The Project has three major components of performance measurement, monitoring and improvement. It covers all urban local bodies (ULBs) in Gujarat and Maharashtra. The project team has worked with the state and local governments to institutionalize the performance assessment system (PAS). More details on www.pas.org.in

In recent years, the project team has focused on sanitation related activities. These include developing measurement systems and indicators for on-site sanitation, preparing and implementing city sanitation plans, developing tools for assessing sanitation improvement actions, and developing mechanisms for financing urban sanitation

Goal(s):
The main aim of the proposed project is to develop and test, through implementation in two states in India, a performance assessment system for urban water supply and sanitation. The working hypothesis of this project is that a well performing and sustainable PAS will make service delivery more efficient, equitable and sustainable.

Objectives: The key objectives of the project are :

o Objective 1 : To develop and implement a performance measurement system for regular and reliable UWSS information
o Objective 2: To analyze and share results on a regular basis with ULBs, state government agencies and other stakeholders through performance monitoring and dissemination system for use in decision making and providing incentives.
o Objective 3: To facilitate development of performance improvement plans by urban local bodies with support from state government, NGOs and private sector.
o Objective 4: To develop an assessment framework and financially feasible planning approach for citywide sanitation

Start and end date: 1st December, 2008 to 30th June, 2016

Grant type: Research grant (see here in BMGF database : www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quic...nts/2008/12/OPP49243)

Grant size: USD 9,840,056

Funding for this research currently ongoing: yes

Research or implementation partners: Urban Management Centre (UMC), Ahmedabad, Gujarat and All India Institute of Local Self Government (AIILSG), Mumbai, Maharashtra

Links, further readings – results to date:
Project website: www.pas.org.in
Entry in SuSanA library: www.susana.org/en/resources/library/details/2091
See also related thread about flash cards used for faecal sludge management: forum.susana.org/forum/categories/53-fae...on-sandec-compendium

Current state of affairs:
Well established systems of information and tools for performance monitoring and improvement have been set up in both the states. Apart from this during the course of the work in both the states, it was found that in nearly two-thirds of cities, on-site sanitation is practiced, and very little information is available for this aspect. Thus in January 2012, CEPT started to work on Sanitation related issues, focusing on sanitation assessment, developing sanitation plans and looking at governance of sanitation at local level. During the past years, various activities have been initiated on sanitation by the CEPT team, viz. development of a citywide sanitation assessment framework, preparation of city sanitation plans, exploring private sector engagement to improve service delivery and studies on regulation of onsite sanitation systems.

Biggest successes so far:
Over the five years period, CEPT has worked closely with state governments of Gujarat and Maharashtra and over 400+ cities in these two states to generate information. There is now a well-established system of information and tools for performance monitoring and performance improvement have been developed. State PAS/SLB Cells have been formed in both states for regular performance monitoring and support preparation of PIPs. They have actively coordinated data collection.

The PAS web portal (www.pas.org.in) is fully operational and provides public access to performance information for last 5 years for 419 ULBs in the two states. Recently, information from other Indian States has been added. I tis now the largest information base for urban water and sanitation in India. PAS has also strengthened the data visualization component by developing interactive dashboards. These dashboards enable review of state and local level indicators by State and local Governments to monitor performance

Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India has designated CEPT as National Technical Support Centre for benchmarking of water and sanitation. The PAS team has provided training to other States to adopt the PAS framework. PAS will also coordinate and support activities of the National Steering Committee on benchmarking water and sanitation

A decision-support model for Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) developed by PAS project team was used for city sanitation plan (CSP) exercises. The PIP model simulates outcomes and financial implications of a comprehensive set of actions to improve performance of water and sanitation services in municipalities. The model links capital and operational costs of improvement actions with overall municipal finance. It identifies financing options and tariff revisions for various options. A dashboard of the model enables quick comparison of major options.

Challenges :

Onsite Sanitation system: Most cities in India have either full on-site sanitation systems or mixed system with both sewerage and on-site system. However, there are no performance indicators (or benchmarks) to assess on-site sanitation. PAS team is working on developing a set of performance indicators across the sanitation value chain for non-networked cities. However, the information is not readily available with service providers.

Moving away from community/shared toilets: Moving to Open Defecation Free (ODF) cities has emerged as an important agenda our sanitation work. PAS Project has provided support to a number of cities in developing plans for making their cities ODF. Current approach in India is to provide “community toilets”. Our work suggests that this is not an appropriate strategy, as it has high costs –both financial and administrative – to the local government. Instead providing a toilet for each family has a far greater benefit. This idea is being tested in two cities, where the Local City Council have adopted a programme that focuses on facilitating family or group toilets (shared by 2 or 3 families) and agreed to provide partial funds form council budget. Will this programme work?

Sanitation Financing: The current mindset of most local governments is to wait for grants from state or national governments to undertake sanitation projects. This has been the fate of over 200 city sanitation plans in India that were prepared with expectation of large grants from the national government. However, this has not happened. Instead of large-scale centralized systems, we have advocated on-site sanitation. An advantage in such a system is that the investment costs are shared by public agencies and households. But how can cities and household mobilise additional resources? We are working with cities to explore PPPs for Integrated fecal sludge management (IFSM) and consumer finance for own toilets. We are also working at state and national levels to explore mechanisms of “Urban Sanitation Fund” to leverage private funding from corporates (CSR) and social investors (foundations, high net worth individuals, etc.)