Do NOT read this article...unless you want to read about success . . . by Ken Gibbs

Tara Handpump

This article is not to track the creation and development of the Tara Handpump itself but looks at why it became so popular, so quickly. There are a number of sources where the Tara history may be found, starting with, ‘The Birth of a Star’ by Bent Kjellerup. A Google search shows there are multiple sources available about this pump with Akvopedia being an interesting addition.

During the ‘development’ stage of the pump, I had occasion to travel to Delhi to attend a family celebration and took the opportunity to visit the Inalsa Company which, at that time, was one of the leading producers of the India Mark II handpump. It appeared that they had an interest in what we, in Bangladesh, were doing related to the Tara. 

We were cordially received and were taken to where a Tara look-alike had been set up. We were astonished that they were able to do this despite not having the drawings as we hadn’t produced final drawings by that time. 

Looking at their setup, I felt I should ask if someone could fetch a bucket so we could see how it would be filled. The bucket duly arrived and was unable to fit under the spout of the pump – which I had guessed already – so there was still some design work to be done to the Inalsa version. We talked about a number of details and were impressed at both the speed with which they had placed the pump, and their obvious commercial interest in it. I think we noted that the Tara was not to be an exclusively Bangladeshi development because the alluvium didn’t conform to political frontiers. Obviously, there was a huge potential market for the pump both in India and Bangladesh.

We returned to Bangladesh.

I was rotated out of Bangladesh in 1985, and never returned, sadly.

Only in around 2007 did I start a correspondence with a Hydrogeologist Consultant who had worked in Bangladesh for some years and was able to obtain updated information on the ‘Arsenic Problem’ which had caused the water from every single handpump in Bangladesh to be tested and any which were polluted with arsenic were painted red (Beware !) or, if no arsenic was present, painted green (Usable). The relevance of this was that the official website of DPHE (Directorate of Public Health Engineering) gave numbers of handpumps by water quality and by type of pump. From this, it was easy to calculate how many working Tara Handpumps there were in the country at that time.

Perhaps more importantly, the consultant had quite a lot to say about where households were sourcing Taras for private ownership. While a limited number had been manufactured in Bangladesh, the vast majority were smuggled across the ‘leaky border’ between India and Bangladesh meaning that they didn’t pay Excise Duty, greatly expanding the potential market.

The number of working Tara pumps at 2007/2008 was approximately 4 million units, a little over 20 years after it had been created. This computes, arithmetically, to around 200,000 units per year.

Trying to track how many pumps of which type were sourced where, becomes quite convoluted. The Bangladesh New No 6 handpumps were ‘given’ free by DPHE but in reality, because there were very long waiting lists for these ‘free’ pumps, a system arose whereby one on the waiting list could be provided earlier for ‘a consideration’. The larger the consideration, the nearer the top of the list.

Trying to make an estimate of the future numbers of Tara pumps in private hands requires the use of proxies because – for very obvious reasons – DPHE would not be willing to engage in a discussion about who ‘benefits’ from free pumps as it would highlight a corrupt system. Equally, it is difficult to obtain precise sales data for smuggled pumps from India because that would show how much excise duty has not been paid. This is like being ‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place’.

It seems probable that while we will not be able to have a definitive debate of the real costs (and benefits) of the different pump types, we can, nevertheless, see the advantages of total local control compared to control through DPHE. Perhaps a socio-economic survey – asking the right questions – might throw some light on how communities behave when faced with differing choices. In reality, if the Indian Tara pumps keep coming through the leaky border between India and Bangladesh, that is an indication of a desire to have something that obviously works and which they can afford.

4 million units operating says that it is successful. The service has been delivered and neither DPHE nor UNICEF has had to fund the system. Isn’t this what true development is, by helping people to become self-sufficient ?

Why the title of this article, you might well ask ? Too many of our colleagues may have looked at UNICEF as a good source of income – without having to justify what they were supposed to have been doing. Was it that true development (i.e. working yourself out of a job) was too challenging to consider, so that reading this article might awaken their worst fears ?