ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We thank State Program Management Cell, Department of Water Supply & Sanitation, Government of Punjab, for giving us the opportunity to carry out the baseline survey titled “Conducting Sample Household Survey for Determining Percentage of Rural Households in the State with Access to Safe and Adequate Water throughout the Year” Their continued suggestions and encouragements were extremely valuable.

We would especially like to acknowledge Shri. S. R. Aggarwal, Program Director, SPMC and Shri. N. K. Dhir, Senior Program Specialist, SPMC, Mohali for their continuous encouragement, support and guidance at every single stage of the baseline survey. We are also grateful to Shri. D. K. Bhasin, Unit Coordinator (M&E), SPMC, Mohali for his continued inspiration and providing valuable inputs from time to time. We also thank officials from Directorate of Drinking Water & Sanitation, Patiala and Executive Engineers from various districts for facilitating this study at various stages.

We take this opportunity to extend our thanks to Shri Shyamal Sarkar,, Team Task Leader, Ms. Soma Ghosh Maulik, Program Officer, World Bank, New Delhi, for providing overall guidance to the Baseline Survey from the inception till preparation of the report. Their guidance helped in sharpening the focus of this study.

We thank Dr. Ashish Panigrahi, Executive Director, ORG Centre for Social Research for his continued support during various stages of this study.

Various people from the community and our investigators helped us in many different ways during various stages, especially during the data collection. We thank all of them for their valuable contributions.

Last but not the least; we would like to thank all the respondents for their patience in answering the questions.

Many individuals have provided direct and indirect support to bring this report to completion. We thank all of them, even if they are not mentioned by name.

The Baseline Survey Team

ORG Centre for Social Research