A Chairman, a Managing Director and an Accounts Member: how the Kerala Water Authority is put together

Background

The Kerala Water Authority is the statutory body that Section 3 of Kerala's Water Supply and Sewerage Act, 1986 constitutes, and its head office is at Thiruvananthapuram. Section 4 sets out who sits on it. There is a Chairman appointed by the Government, and a Managing Director who must have experience in management and administration or be a qualified engineer not below the rank of Chief Engineer; a person more than fifty five years of age cannot be appointed Managing Director. Four secretaries to Government sit ex officio — the Secretary in charge of the Public Health Engineering Department or of the Authority itself, the Finance Secretary, the Secretary for Local Administration and the Secretary for the Development Department. Two members represent the local bodies of the State, two more are appointed by the Government with one of them from a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe, and the technical member must be a Public Health Engineer of at least Chief Engineer rank. An Accounts Member completes the body: a qualified Chartered Accountant with at least fifteen years of experience in a responsible position in a reputed commercial organisation or public sector undertaking, or a member of the Accounts Service of the Central Government. The Act treats a city corporation, a municipal council, a township and a panchayat alike as a local body. A burst water pipeline at Cheruthoni in Idukki has put the Authority's distribution network back in the news.