Panorama of elaboration of Municipal Basic Sanitation Plans and Urban Drainage Master Plans of Minas Gerais' small municipalities

In Brazil, the impacts of the water crisis are intensified since the Drainage and Rainwater Management are marked by absences and limitations of public policies. Basic sanitation is a municipal property and for the exercise of this right and duty, it is essential that the municipalities structure the municipal policy, with planning as their main instrument. In this context, this article aimed to identify and analyze the panorama of the elaboration of Municipal Basic Sanitation Plans and Master Plans for Urban Drainage in the municipalities of the state of Minas Gerais with a population of less than 50,000 inhabitants and to compare these results with the information released by the National Sanitation Information System, in 2019. Internet searches and contacts with the municipalities were carried out by telephone, so that it was possible to identify that among the 752 small-sized ones in Minas Gerais, 499 of them have Municipal Basic Sanitation Plans, while none of them have Master Plans for Urban Drainage. When comparing these results with the information released by the National Sanitation Information System, it was observed that 79 municipalities provided inconsistent information related to the existence of Municipal Basic Sanitation Plans and 48 municipalities claimed to have Master Plans for Urban Drainage. It is concluded that many municipalities in Minas Gerais do not yet have Municipal Basic Sanitation Plans and that the process of collecting National Sanitation Information System data needs to be improved so that there is a better quality of the data released. The absence of planning instruments to assist the implementation of municipal policy is an important problem to be overcome in order to face the complex challenges involving municipal Stormwater Drainage and Management.