Contamination, Pollution and Quality

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.

PATH's Safe Water project Request for letters of interest for monitoring and evaluation PATH is requesting letters of interest (LOIs) from organizations who wish to be considered to provide monitoring and evaluation (M&E) services for several pilot projects testing commercial channels for household water treatment and safe storage products in India. All the details are here

Image & News Courtesy: Department of Science & Technology, India The Department of Science & TechnologyIndia has carved out a "Major initiative on Water Technologies in the Eleventh Plan".

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.

A slow sand filter built with Japanese aid is running out of use because the community cannot repair the broken pump. Can we help organize the community to take charge of its asset?!

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.

The most popular FAQs are listed below. Please click on a topic to view more detailed information:

Most drinking water projects are designed for supply of treated water through pipes to communities ; this requires investment on infrastructure such as pumps, overhead tanks, supply pipes, water purification equipment and after the project, maintenance staff and funds; while all this calls for planning, funding and time to execute, yet we cannot be certain that the water delivered remains uncon