People and Organisations

Two documents giving the details of the mega camps and other relief camps that are being run by the Government. Thanks to Eklavya Prasad of Megh Pyne Abhiyan for forwarding these documents.

Please see message below: ======= We are in process of distributing 1,000 sets of TERAFIL water filters among the victims of Bihar flood affected areas for supply of drinking water. These filters can provide at least 50,000 litres of clean drinking water every day, which can be operated without electricity by the victims easily, like any other candle filters.

Courtesy: biharfloodrelief2008.blogspot.com 

Fresh water to-day has become a precious commodity world wide. Water-saving, better utilization of water and avoiding wastage is becoming a universal concern. This New faucet, avoids inadvertent wastage during the usage of water for legitimate purpose such as washing of hands. It is user friendly, Hygienic, Economical, Eliminates leaking taps, Made of recyclable material, and helps in the optimum use of water. One of the basic problems with the commonly used screw-type faucet is that once the faucet is open to wet the hands, while the soap is being applied fresh water is continuously flowing down the drain without serving any purpose. As the time taken for applying soap constitutes more than 60% of the time in a normal hand washing cycle it can be easily understood that a large quantity of water is going to waste inadvertently. Apart from this screw-type faucet can continuously waste water if they are left open due to carelessness etc.

Desalt Innovation Middle East LLC (DIME) has introduced hydrophobic sand or "water proofed" sand. DIME has exclusive rights from a chemical manufacturer in Germany to produce the sand, by the addition of an additive SP-HFS 1609 by a specially developed mixer.

As the quality of our water deteriorates, we expect that people will more and more need to/want to test the quality of their drinking and other water.

The list below represents a compilation of information on water testing resources in various parts of India. The list uploaded here has been prepared from the information collected and compiled by NEERI, Nagpur and AIIH & PH, Kolkata with the professional support of a senior consultant and in collaboration with WHO India Country Office, New Delhi.

Several threats have emerged in recent years to the pristine Himalayan rivers of Uttarakhand. These include: (i) the proposed construction of 220 dams (ii) the drying up of rain fed rivers due to deforestation and deforestation of their catchments (iii) release of untreated sewage from river side towns and habitations and (iv) illegal sand mining of river beds.

Pained by the unrelenting destruction of the Ganga river, especially by a series of dams in its upper reaches, Dr G.D. Agrawal, India's pre-eminent environmental quality scientist and a legendary Professor (and HoD) of Civil & Environmental Engineering at IIT-Kanpur. (Access:Biography Sketch Here) has decided to go on a fast-unto-death to oppose its continuing desecration. His conviction that we are staring at an unprecedented ecological and cultural catastrophe comes from his powerfully logical mind. Critique on proposed dams on Bhagirathi River. Access here: Critique on Dams

The Central Electrochemical Research Institute (CECRI), Karaikudi, India with the sponsorship of Department of Science and Technology (DST), New Delhi, India has developed an indigenous, low cost method of removing Arsenic from drinking water. The purifier is eco-friendly and can be run off a solar power source. Models for Domestic as well as Community use have been developed

Drop by drop ACCESS & HUL in Base of Pyramid Partnership for Safe Drinking Water for Rural Poor:

Yakalakshmi lives in Nekkunda village, Telengana region in Andhra Pradesh with her husband and two children. Though she has water piped to her house by the village panchayat, her entire family fell ill for a month last monsoon season by drinking water directly from the tap. "We all got high fever and severe diarrhea", she says, "we had to spend around Rs. 4000 on health care, which was very difficult for us". So when she got the opportunity this January to buy an effective water purifier through her Self Help Group (SHG) on an installment basis she was one of the first to sign up. Yakalakshmi is just one of the beneficiaries of a unique tie-up between ACCESS Development Services, a microfinance technical services non-profit organization, and Hindustan Unilever Limited, one of the country's largest producers of fast-moving consumer goods, to provide safe drinking water to rural poor. "Most of these villages have piped water or boreholes", says Padma, Project Coordinator at a local NGO, PEACE, "the problem is that tests by UNICEF in this district show that up to 70 percent of these sources are contaminated."The contamination gets even worse during the rainy season, especially due to poor sanitation and waste-management practices.