From the Public Health Engineering Department to Jalabhavan: the body that pipes Kerala's drinking water

Background

The Kerala Water Authority was established on 1st April 1984 under the Kerala water and waste water ordinance, 1984 by converting the erstwhile Public Health Engineering Department, to provide for the development and regulation of water supply and waste water collection and disposal in the State and for matters connected therewith. The Kerala Water Supply and Sewerage Act 1986 (Act 14 of 1986) replaced the ordinance, and the Authority was established by vesting in it the properties and assets of the erstwhile Public Health Engineering Department, together with the assets, rights and liabilities of the local bodies and the Kerala State Rural Development Board so far as they pertain to water supply and sewerage schemes. The Authority calls itself Kerala's nodal agency for drinking water supply and sewerage services. Its main functions include the preparation, execution, promotion, operation, maintenance and financing of such schemes; rendering necessary services to the Government and, on request, to private institutions or individuals; preparing state plans on the direction of the Government; the fixation and revision of tariffs, taxes and charges; and establishing state standards for water supply and waste water services. Its history runs back further: in the erstwhile Travancore a maramath department was formed in 1833 as a branch of the Huzur Cutchery or the Secretariat; the water supply scheme to Thiruvananthapuram was inaugurated on 11-12-1933 by Lord Willingdon, the then Viceroy and Governor General of India; the PWD continued to be in charge of water supply till 1935, when a Water Works and Drainage Engineering Department was constituted; and after the Government of India announced the National Water Supply Programme in 1954, the Public Health Engineering Department was formed in Kerala in 1956. The head office is at Jalabhavan, Vellayambalam, Thiruvananthapuram.