KERALA RISING · FROM EXPORTING PEOPLE TO EXPORTING IDEAS the functioning count and its provisional points lapse. The external cross-check is what makes the figure credible. Dry-season well and pond levels, published as open data, can be compared against the functioning-asset count: if the assets are real and working, aggregate water availability in the panchayat should move with them over seasons. Where it does not, the program learns something, perhaps the asset type is wrong for the local hydrology. And adjusts. Tying a behavioural register to an independent physical measurement is what separates this from a scheme that simply counts subsidised structures and assumes they work. From pilot to state-wide PHASE SC O PE WH A T I T P ROV E S Pilot One or two corridors in a willing local body That the verified action works and citizens engage Scale-up A district, with the partner department leading That the loop holds beyond the early-adopter corridor State-wide Rolled into the partner’s standing operations That the program is durable infrastructure, not a campaign Table 9.3; Water Secure Kerala: a three-phase rollout, each phase gated on the last. 146