A/HRC/45/10/Add.2 I. Introduction 1. Pursuant to resolution 42/5 of the Human Rights Council, the Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation undertakes official visits to promote the progressive realization of the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation. 2. The Human Rights Council encourages all Governments to continue to respond to requests by the Special Rapporteur, to follow up effectively on the recommendations of the mandate holder and to make available information on measures taken in this regard (resolution 33/10, para. 15). Furthermore, the Manual of Operations of the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council stipulates that Special Procedures mandate holders can seek to enhance the effectiveness of their country visits in various ways, including by formulating their recommendations in ways that facilitate implementation and monitoring and undertaking follow-up initiatives through communications and further visits (paras. 97 to 105). In this connection, the Special Rapporteur seeks to enhance the effectiveness of his official country visits by undertaking a follow-up analysis of those visits focusing on the implementation of recommendations presented in his country visit reports.1 3. The official visit to India was undertaken upon the invitation of the Government from 27 October to 10 November 2017. During the visit, the Special Rapporteur met with representatives of government at several levels and met with people whose enjoyment of the rights to water and sanitation has been affected. At the end of the visit, he held a press conference and issued a press release and preliminary statement on 10 November 2017.2 The report of the official visit (A/HRC/39/55/Add.1) was presented to the Human Rights Council in September 2018. The Government of India provided comments to the report (A/HRC/39/55/Add.3). 4. In preparing the current report, the Special Rapporteur, between October 2019 and May 2020, conducted desk research on the implementation of the recommendations provided to the Government in his visit report, in order to develop a picture of the Government’s current actions, inactions and progress. To support the research, a questionnaire to the Government was sent, but no reply was received. Additionally, the Special Rapporteur invited non-State actors to respond to the questionnaire but no response was received. 5. In the current report, the main findings of the follow-up are presented, introducing the level of development of the recommendations and highlighting further recommendations derived from the current status. It is organized through relevant clusters of recommendations. The level of implementation of the recommendations are assessed in accordance with the following categories: 1) good progress, 2) progress on-going 3) progress limited, 4) progress not started, 5) unable to assess due to lack of information and 6) retrogression. II. Legal, institutional and policy frameworks A. Recommendation on legislative frameworks 1. Recommendation on harmonization of legislative framework RECOMMENDATION 1: “Adopt a legislative framework that recognizes the human rights to water and sanitation at the national level and, in particular, ensure the harmonization and consistency of that legislative framework across states and the union territories of India;” (A/HRC/39/55/Add.1, para. 71 (a)) 6. At the time of the Special Rapporteur’s visit, there was no national law recognizing water and sanitation as human rights (A/HRC/39/55/Add.1, para. 6). Instead of a national 1 2 2 https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/WaterAndSanitation/SRWater/Pages/FollowUpAnalysisOfficial CountryVisits.aspx. https://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22375&LangID=E.