Water Tank Rationing Under a Falling Water Table
A gewog has one 20,000-litre tank serving 240 households. Daily consumption averages 18 litres per household, but in the dry season inflow from the spring drops to about 3,200 litres per day while demand stays constant. The Gup must ration. Option 1: supply water for 6 hours each morning. Option 2: supply every household 12 litres per day through a fixed standpipe schedule. Option 3: prioritise the health centre, two schools, and 40 households with elderly or disabled members, then distribute the remainder equally. The health centre alone needs 400 litres daily. A household survey last year found that 30 households have storage tanks of 500 litres or more, while 85 households have no storage beyond buckets. The dry season is expected to last 70 days.
1. Compare the three options on feasibility, equity, and enforceability, using the numbers given.
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First, fix the arithmetic. Inflow is 3,200 L/day against demand of 240 × 18 = 4,320 L/day, a shortfall of 1,120 L/day, or about 26%. Over 70 days the gap is roughly 78,400 litres, which the tank cannot cover without rationing.
Option 1 (6-hour supply) is the easiest to operate but the least equitable. Households with 500-litre tanks (30 of them) can buffer the gap; the 85 households with only buckets cannot, and they will queue and lose time. It is also weakly enforceable: once the valve is open, whoever has a larger container or a closer standpipe wins.
Option 2 (12 L/household/day) is equitable in the flat sense but arithmetically impossible: 240 × 12 = 2,880 L, which fits within 3,200 L, but leaves only 320 L for the health centre, schools, and any leakage. It also ignores need - a household of seven and a household of one receive the same amount.
Option 3 (priority plus equal share) is the most defensible. Reserve 400 L for the health centre, allow a modest school allocation (say 300 L), and 40 vulnerable households at 15 L each (600 L). That leaves about 1,900 L for the remaining 200 households, roughly 9.5 L each. It is lower per household than Option 2 but directs water where harm is greatest, and it is enforceable because the priority list is published and finite.
2. The Gup is pressured to add 15 more households to the vulnerable list by a village elder. What decision rule should he apply, and how should he communicate it?
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He needs a published, pre-stated criterion, applied to all claims at once, rather than a case-by-case negotiation. A workable rule: the vulnerable list includes households with a registered member who is elderly, disabled, or chronically ill, verified against the gewog health register, plus households with a pregnant member or an infant under two. The list is fixed for the season and reviewed once at mid-season.
The elder's 15 households should be checked against that rule, not against the elder's standing. Some may qualify and should be added; others may not. If additions push the total beyond what the reserve can carry, the per-household vulnerable allocation must fall, and that trade-off should be stated openly: 'adding 15 households means each vulnerable household receives 12 litres instead of 15.'
Communication should be a single public notice at the chiwog meeting and on the notice board, listing the criteria, the total allocation, the schedule, and the mid-season review date. The Gup should say plainly that he cannot grant exceptions outside the criteria, and should invite anyone who believes a household was wrongly omitted to bring documentation to the health assistant. This converts a personal request into a rule-based process, which is the only way to refuse some claims without appearing arbitrary.