in order to provide safe drinking water to all rural areas during the Ninth Plan, the ministry of rural development has revised the guidelines for implementing the Rural Water Supply Programme (rwsp). This would involve exercising control on over-extraction of groundwater, more funds for repair and rehabilitation of infrastructure, increasing people's participation, reserving 20 per cent funds for the states and establishing stronger links with watershed development programmes. The main objective of the guideline is to ensure safe drinking water to all rural areas and to preserve the quality of water by institutionalising water quality monitoring and surveillance through a catchment area approach. The norms stipulate that 40 litres per capita per day (lpcd) for humans may be provided for drinking, cooking, bathing, washing utensils and ablution.