Drinking and other Domestic Uses

The India WASH Forum newsletter for November 2010. It is an open platform for engagement on contemporary issues, for an independent credible voice in the water, sanitation and hygiene sector.

• Recent estimates of drinking water and sanitation status of India
  As per the estimate, India has achieved a coverage of 68% rural population having access to an individual household toilet.
  
  
• Urban sanitation in India: life after Common Wealth Games
  The Commonwealth Games generated a media blitz recently. Unfortunately, instead of highlighting the sorry state of sanitation in India, the issue was trivialized in the media.

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• Factors Responsible for the spread of Fluorosis

• Sources of the injection of fluorides into the Human Bodies

With tihs, they can improve water and sanitation service regulation and provision at international, national and local levels. Directed primarily at community groups, human rights NGOs, rights-based development practitioners and aid workers, this handbook aims to strengthen human rights-based advocacy by providing innovative and practical suggestions that activists and organisations can use in their work. It also acts as a resource guide for finding further information.

Water and sanitation are essential for living a healthy life with dignity. However, around a billion people across the world lack access to a safe and sufficient water supply to cover their basic needs. Over 2.5 billion people lack access to adequate sanitation and nearly 1.2 billion face the indignity of open defecation every day.

The Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target to halve the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015 is seriously off track, with sanitation severely lagging behind. For example, estimates suggest that at current rates of progress, sub-Saharan Africa will miss the MDG water target by about 25 years, while the sanitation target may not be reached until well into the 22nd century.

It underlines, in this regard, the importance of a responsible municipal fiscal and financial system, simplification of existing water pricing and tariff structures, and regulatory mechanisms which are able to balance the interests of the producers and consumers of urban services.

This paper explores Surangas, which are an ancient water system based on tunnels bored horizontally on the slopes of hills to get drinking water. These structures are mainly found in the laterite soils of Dakshina Kannada region and some parts of Kerala and Goa.

 Hitherto the role of the government was that of a service provider, with minimum involvement of the community in the planning process and the implementation activities. With the increase in demand due to public aspirations and decrease of availability of safe water it was considered essential to involve the community in the programme.

To achieve this, there was a paradigm shift and the Framework for implementation of National Rural Drinking Water Programme was revised in 2009. The Department appropriately addressed the soft issues related to facilitating the  active participation of PRIs in the process of planning, implementation and operation of schemes to achieve the goal of long term sustainability. It also ensured that the community gets continuous support and handholding so that they are empowered to take up the role of planning and implementing the systems also in addition to operating and maintaining them.

Forwarded to the portal by: Sujoy Majumdar, DDWS through the

 It is an attempt to understand the effect of rainfall, physiography, lithology, slope and aspect, land use practices, vegetation, altitude, soil type and anthropogenic interference (e.g., road construction and settlement etc.) and other characteristics in the spring recharge zone on the water yield and water quality of the selected springs in the mid-altitudinal belt (lesser Himalaya) in western Himalaya (Uttaranchal).

Organiser: Institution of Public Health Engineers, India

Venue: Hotel The New Marrion, Bhubaneswar, Orissa

The scarcity value of natural resources has risen due to rising pressure of human population and demands made by modern economics progress. As such managing these resources has become very important.