Jharkhand State is on the journey of ensuring the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) accreditation of their laboratories and recently completed the accreditation of 29 labs in the state for water quality testing on a mission mode. This initiative has been spearheaded by the Public Health and Engineering Department (PHED) and efforts on water quality are being led by Ms. Sugandha Ganguly, who is the State Coordinator for Water Quality Monitoring and Surveillance. We interacted with her to understand the journey so far and where they are headed in this context.
A quick summary of the interaction
Sugandha talks about the Water Quality Management (WQM) course offered by the INREM Foundation, which she underwent to start the water quality (WQ) work in her State. She talks about the ease of understanding that the course enabled through its structure and modularized format. She also emphasises the use of virtual mediums and digital tools to provide access to content, which has made it very simple for her to take the course forward in her area with other stakeholders.
Jharkhand has been able to get accreditation for most of their laboratories and train the chemists. By customising the available course content based on the priorities of the learners and of the State, her team was able to contextualise the WQM course and make it relevant and useful.
One of the motivating factors for initiating the WQM course was that it could be conducted online, which provided a lot of flexibility. The way it is structured - requiring only 2 hours of dedicated time on a weekly basis enables learners to join from all parts of the State. The course material via Participatory Digital Attestation (PDA) was beneficial and fruitful for the participants, as they received good IEC Materials related to waterborne diseases and water quality awareness that were really needed in remote villages in Jharkhand.
She emphasises on the importance of having a common platform and regular interactions through it with all stakeholders to resolve queries and enable learning and sharing between one another. Her department and senior leaders have been very supportive of this initiative.
As this was the first time this kind of training was being organised and conducted, it had its own challenges, like finding the right trainers and experts to plan and execute these sessions. But with support from INREM and other partners, they have been able to execute it successfully.
After looking at the effectiveness of the WQM course, Sugandha and her team members are further planning to expand the reach of the course and related opportunities, such as the creation of more WQ trainers and a learning group on WQ for actors working on different aspects of WQM&S to stay connected with each other and share the challenges as well as best practises from their respective regions. She is confident that this type of knowledge-driven platform will definitely act as a catalyst in achieving JJM-WQMS targets in Jharkhand.
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