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| Tara Handpump |
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 ?
Thanks Ken - indeed this a concrete measure of sustainable success taken to scale. This should be the goal of every initiative.
ReplyDeleteWhat strikes me is that UNICEF is taking credit for innovations that are really the product of practical engineering, local manufacturing, and the people who actually use the technology. Designing a reliable hand pump requires skill, but it is not an achievement that only a multi-billion-dollar aid agency could accomplish. A small team of capable engineers, mechanics, and people with firsthand knowledge of rural conditions could develop a durable, inexpensive, locally repairable pump.
ReplyDeleteWhat made the Tara successful was not simply its design; it was that people adopted it because it met their needs. As the article notes, millions of pumps were spread through commercial production and informal cross-border trade, with little support from UNICEF. That suggests the real success lay in local demand, affordability, and maintainability, not in institutional involvement.
The article may give more weight to UNICEF's involvement than it deserves. If an innovation thrives because local people make it, buy it, repair it, and keep using it without outside funding, then the credit belongs primarily to the engineers, manufacturers, entrepreneurs, and communities who made that possible.
Dear Thomas:
ReplyDeleteWhile you are absolutely right that any competent engineer could have done what we did – but patently, they did not. There was no direct action/buoyant pump-rod handpump device beforehand. Why not – because uPVC was alive and well long before we arrived on the scene ? That’s a first.
Secondly, nobody in the sector that I could see was concerned about the costs of the programme – especially in the longer term. Even engineers need to be able to answer the question of where the money would come to provide safe water for everyone, and how to make the system self-sustaining. No such plans existed in 1980 when I was recruited.
The Tara didn’t set out to replace the Bangladesh New No 6 handpump, but to expand its operational range to deal with many suction mode pumps drying up in the dry season. It was to provide an affordable pump that fully met the users’ needs and in the private sector to avoid the Patronage System which diverted huge sums of money away from where it was actually needed.
Whoever was going to design and develop what became the Tara would have to deal with the nine UNICEF Representatives and/or Acting Reps who came and went during the period 1980 to 1985. The economic imperative was a useful tool to influence them to support the process thus avoiding any one of them deciding that they knew better and cancelling the work. Against this, I personally felt that using UNICEF’s influence and reputation would smooth out any impediments en route. As we were drawing on the services of UNDP, The World Bank, and a number of NGOs, and the private sector, the question of coordination was a feature of our work. Happily, they shared our vision. Incidentally, apart from staff emoluments, the only direct development costs by the time we were ready to go to scale, amounted to around US$ 5,000 only. The costs to provide the first few thousand Tara handpumps came from the reduction in New No 6 pumps in areas where they wouldn’t have worked anyway.
So, UNICEF gave us the credibility umbrella that would be missing if some unconnected individuals were to have done what we did, alone. This ‘umbrella’ was crucial when coordination was required. I was not a dazzlingly accomplished engineer, I just happened to be able to keep the group dynamics functioning until such time as the pump was ready to go to scale. If it hadn’t been well designed, users wouldn’t have bought it. That they did at around 200,000 units per year tells us that it was successful.
This captures how many aid agencies operate. They have mastered taking victory laps for local successes to justify their funding and existence. Yet, it is rare to find examples where the agencies themselves were the actual drivers of long-term development. Dodging nine different representatives in five years says it all. The Tara succeeded despite the bureaucracy, not because of it. Ken basically had to use the system as a shield just to protect the work. The real win here did not come from top-down planning; it came from engineering and local market demand, bypassing a patronage system. Regular people voting with their wallets for something that worked. Four million pumps running without ongoing agency funding is the ultimate definition of sustainable success. It is a shame that institutions slap their logo on self-sustaining triumphs that they did not actually build.
ReplyDeleteI was working in UNICEf India Office at the time of development of Mark 2 and later Tara- I do not agree with Thomas Ekvall’s comment that UNICEF has taken more credit than it deserved - unicef played a key role and dedicated committed colleagues - Bill Cousins, Rupert Talbot , Ken Gibbs, and other engineers made a huge difference working with local government agencies - they catalysed the successful private sector partnerships which served as examples in other sectors- let us not downplay such pioneering efforts and bold actions taken by former colleagues - in India we made it happen- so Thomas do not generalize but consider that county specific successes do exist and are being sustained by local governments. I feel We have much to be proud of and I agree there are failures that we should recognise and analyse.
ReplyDelete
DeleteI agree, it is possible to point to genuine successes, and the Tara hand pump may be one of them. But it is important to keep perspective. For an organisation that has spent something in the order of US$250 billion, in today's money, since its inception, there are remarkably few examples of transformative, self-sustaining successes.
My experience was that we too often claimed credit for work that was primarily done by others. NGOs, sister UN agencies, and local partners often complained that UNICEF's public relations machinery portrayed common achievements as UNICEF's own. More often than not, the criticism was justified. Our standard response was that they should promote themselves more effectively.
The Tara story is an illustration of another reality: successes often resulted from the persistence, creativity, and determination of a handful of individuals who managed to get things done despite, rather than because of, the organisation. Large bureaucracies rarely innovate; they may enable, often delay, or sometimes obstruct. The real challenge was often protecting good ideas from being smothered by institutional processes.
That highlights how exceptional these successes were. The fact that, after decades and hundreds of billions of dollars, we still return to the same relatively small number of examples says something important about the organisation itself.