Public facilities are essential facilities for everyone, such as water, healthcare, electricity, public transport, and schools. The Government plays a crucial role in their provision, and once it is provided, its benefits can be shared by many people. Due to the limited number of resources and the differences in income of the population, public facilities help in making necessities available to all, irrespective of their economic situation. It is the basic right of every individual to have access to those resources and facilities that help in their survival. Hence, the Government makes provisions for such facilities. 

Water as a Public Facility

• Importance of Water:
  • Water is essential for life as well as good health
  • Many water-related ailments can be avoided by drinking safe water: India has the highest number of instances of diarrhoea, dysentery, and cholera. (Water-related diseases claim the lives of over 1,600 Indians every day, the majority of whom are youngsters under the age of five.)
• Constitutional mandate: The Constitution of India recognises the Right to Water as being a part of the rights under Article 21. This means that it is the right of every individual, whether rich or poor, to have enough water to fulfil one’s daily needs at an affordable price
• Judicial Intervention:
  • Right to Safe drinking water is a Fundamental Right: It has been held by the High Courts and Supreme Court in several court cases
  • While hearing a case based on the letter made by a villager in Mahbubnagar district about the contamination of drinking water in the year 2007, the Andhra Pradesh High Court reiterated this. The textile industry was pouring dangerous chemicals into a stream near his hamlet, poisoning groundwater used for irrigation and drinking
  • The court ordered the Mahbubnagar district collector to provide each person in the area with 25 litres of water

Glaring Situation of Water supply by local bodies in India:

• In Chennai, Municipal supply meets only about half the needs of the people of the city
• The poor are severely affected by water shortages

Great inequalities in water use exist as shown in Table below:

• Other cities in India experience similar shortages and major crises throughout the summer months.

Some people argue that since the public authority cannot supply the quantity of water that is required and many the civil water offices are running confused, privately owned businesses should be permitted to take control of the undertaking of water supply.

The private sector in Water Supply

• Water supply is a government duty all around the world. There are only a few examples of private water supplies
• In some parts of the world, such as Porto Alegre (Brazil), public water delivery has been made universal
• When the responsibility for water supply was transferred to private companies in a few cases, the price of water increased, making it unaffordable for many
• Huge protests were observed in cities around the world, with riots breaking out in places like Bolivia, forcing the Government to reclaim the service from private hands

Success Stories of Government Water Departments in India

• Mumbai: The water supply department raises enough money through water charges to cover its expenses on supplying water
• Hyderabad: The urban body has increased coverage and improved performance in revenue collection
• Chennai: A number of rainwater gathering programs have been launched to boost groundwater levels. It has also used private enterprises to carry and distribute water, but the Government’s water supply department sets the pricing and grants authorization to operate water tankers

Public Transport as Public facility

• Buses are the most common mode of short-distance public transportation. For the vast majority of working people, it is their primary connection to their workplace
• As an alternative to buses, the Government has planned and executed ambitious metro rail projects for most metropolitan cities as alternatives to buses

Sanitation as a Public facility

• Sanitation is essential in the prevention of water-borne infections, in addition to clean drinking water, and it also falls under Article 21
• In India, Sanitation coverage is even lower than that of clean water. Official figures for 2011 show that 87 per cent of the households in India have access to drinking water, and about 53 per cent have access to sanitation (toilet facilities within the premises of residence)

Role of Government

One of the Government’s most essential responsibilities is to ensure that these public facilities are accessible to everyone. The Government must shoulder this responsibility because:

• Public facilities are not for profit: Private companies operate for profit in the market. For example, they will not get any direct benefit for keeping the drains clean
• Availability and Affordability: In areas of the private sector like schools and hospitals, the service is not affordable for all
• Basic Needs: Public facilities are related to people’s basic needs. Any modern society requires that these facilities be provided to meet people’s basic needs
• Fundamental Rights: The Right to Life that the Constitution guarantees is for all persons living in the country

Financing Public Facilities

• In the Budget, the Government announces the various ways in which it plans to meet its expenses
• The major source of revenue for the Government is the taxes collected from the people. The Government has the authority to collect these taxes and put them towards such initiatives
• For example, to supply water, the public authority needs to bring about costs in siphoning water, conveying it over significant distances, and setting downpipes for circulation
• It partially covers these consumptions by gathering different duties and charging an expense for water to a limited extent

Article 21

• Article 21 of the Indian Constitution states that each person has the Right to Life and Personal Liberty
• This law has several provisions that safeguard citizens’ right to liberty
• In terms of public facilities, Article 21 includes the Right to Medical Care, which focuses on the availability of medical facilities to all
• Through the Right to Medical Care, the Government aims to protect the lives of citizens by providing healthcare and medical assistance when required
• The Right to Clean Environment is also included in Article 21, which states that the Government should ensure that each citizen has access to a harmless, safe environment
• The Right to Education promotes literacy in the country. Under this Right, the Government must provide facilities and institutions to make education accessible to all
• The Article also includes under it the Right to Water and ensures the availability of clean and safe drinking water for all
• Article 21 is a provision by the Government that focuses on public facilities and their availability

Conclusion

Public facilities are those arrangements that are provided to all. This is done to ensure that every citizen of the country has equal access to the basic requirements for survival. The Government of India works to create provisions to ensure that these facilities are provided. Resources such as water, healthcare, and education are the Constitutional responsibility of the Indian Government, and many steps have been taken to implement this. The Government plays the role of creating a system wherein public facilities are available and are of a certain quality. Through Article 21, the Indian Constitution creates legal conditions for providing public facilities. This provision involves rights such as the Right to Water, the Right to a Clean Environment, and the Right to Education that safeguard the citizens’ access to necessities of life.