Ecosan solutions for flood hit Bihar

"Megh Pyne Abhiyan" is a network of NGOS that has been working in flood affected areas in Bihar with Arghyam support for the past few years. MPA has been grappling with the idea of providing clean water and sanitation in Bihar. They have been able to do some great work with rainwater harvesting and the cleaning of the open wells to provide iron free and salinity free water in many districts apart from other works. Recently Sheel Raj Shetty of Biome Solutions , took time (and 6 'ecosquat' pans) off from the office in Bangalore, and spent time with each of the MPA partners in each of the 6 flood affected districts. He then carried out a training programme and an introduction programme on Ecosan using locally available materials. One of the Ecosan toilets have been built in the Supaul Collector's office , one of them is a converted conventional toilet to ecosan and some are built using bamboo. According to him there was an enthusiastic response to the idea and also good coverage in the local media. It is possible that the Ecosan can become an integral part of the Owner driven rehabilitation strategy that the Bihar govt. is envisaging and rolling out for the Kosi flood affected along with rainwater harvesting. MPA will be in the thick of things with Ecosan also and they are closely monitoring as well as troubleshooting with the use of the toilets by people. Ecosan has application possibilities in Bihar because the water table is high and floods leave standing water of about half a metre. Here is a short video on one of the Ecosan constructions for the substructure: Megh Pyne Abhiyan and myself will be very happy to respond to any queries about this initiative. Please write to Eklavya Prasad of Megh Pyne Abhiyan (graminunnati@gmail.com) and I would be happy to be contacted too at zenrainman@gmail.com