Performance Report – 2010 - Ministry of Finance and Planning

Committee (SCARC) for furtherconsideration.Apart from the project appraisals,observations were submitted on 14 CabinetMemoranda of which 4 Cabinet Memorandawere related to the aviation sector and 6Cabinet Memoranda were related to transportsector. The remaining 4 Cabinet Memorandawere related to the port sector. Based onsome of the direct observations importdecisions such as signing the new air servicesagreements with Qatar, Ukraine andEuropean Union have taken place and thiswill improve air service to differentdestinations and also will increase the flightfrequencies between the two countriesconcerned.Table 22 Summary of NPD Work inTransport SectorSector Submitted ObservationsProjectProposalsCabinetMemorandaAviation 1 4Ports 1 4Transport 2 6Total 04 14Water SupplyAt present, about 87 percent of the totalpopulation in the country is able to accesssafe drinking water. 95 percent of the urbanpopulation, 85 percent of rural populationand 60 percent of estate population is able toaccess this facility.The pipe borne water coverage in the countryis 39 percent of households of which theNational Water Supply and Drainage Board(NWSDB) had provided 1,353,573 watersupply connections at the end of 2010 toabout 32 percent of total households. Thelocal Authorities and Community managedwater schemes have provided pipe bornewater to 7 percent of the households in thecountry. At present, NWSDB’s productioncapacity is 469 m 3 mn /annum. In addition,there are about 4000 small scale water supplyschemes operated by the community basedorganizations island wide. However, wellsincluding tube wells and dug wells play avital role in providing drinking water to thenation. It is reported that more than 30,000tube wells have been constructed island wide.Since 2005 to 2010, safe water coverage hasincreased by around 7 percent and pipe bornewater coverage has increased by 10 percent.On average 89,200 new pipe borne waterconnections were provided by the NationalWater Supply and Drainage Board annuallyduring the last five years. However, this isnot sufficient to achieve the 60 percent pipeborne water coverage by 2020 and around150,000 new connections should be added tothe system annually to achieve the saidtarget..During the last five years the non revenuewater (NRW) of NWSDB has been above 30percent. Therefore, special attention shouldbe paid to reduce the NRW in water supplysystems to enhance the number ofconnections and financial sustainability of theNational Water Supply and Drainage Boardand thus a long term programme should beimplemented to reduce NRW to a favorablelevel.Most dependable water source for over 50percent of the households in the country iswells. In addition, most of the CBO managedschemes needs the technical assistance fortheir sustainability. However, people whoreceive water from wells and small schemesneed the assistance in terms of technical,water quality testing and pollution preventingfrom a reliable institution. Therefore,NWSDB should expand its services to peoplewho don’t have pipe borne water supply toaddress the issues set at the above.162