Rural Water

We all know the statistics: 2.6 billion people around the world are without access to a basic toilet. Diarrhoea – the vast majority of it due to poor sanitation and hygiene – is the second biggest killer of children worldwide.

Between us, we also have many of the answers. We have experiences of low-cost technologies that are acceptable and affordable for poor communities in rural areas. We have been involved in designing communications programmes that have contributed to sustained behaviour change.

We have seen governments and civil society working together to set up policies and programmes that ensure access to better sanitation in challenging settings, such as crowded informal settlements in fast-growing megacities. We have also seen businesses grow up around sanitation and hygiene, allowing individuals to make a dignified living and clients to buy the sorts of products and services they want and need.

Content courtesy: India WASH Forum

This research monograph on Thirupporur and Vadakkuppatu: Eighteenth Century Locality Accounts, prepared jointly by the Centre for Policy Studies, Chennai and Tamil University, Thanjavur, presents a graphic picture of the society and polity of eighteenth century Tamil Nadu.

It does this in the context of the new decentralised  governance structures that are based on the assumption that domestic water supply is the legitimate domain of women and thus power and authority needs to be granted to women to manage water resources.

However, there is a very little understanding of how this has benefited women and what are the challenges experienced during the process of implementation or the outcomes gained from these processes, in the context of the Indian society that continues to propogate patriarchal values and is based on structures that are inherently hierarchical and inequitable.

Some of the papers dwell on and explore the inherent biases in the literature and make an attempt to understand their implications for women in managing water resources, while some of the papers share case studies on the outcomes of the implementation of the decentralised water management policies at the village level.

This report deals with environmental assessment and environmental management framework for the World Bank supported Jalanidhi-2 programme of the Kerala Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (KRWSA), an important player in rural water supply and sanitation sector of the state.

This brief report by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) presents an analysis of the monitoring of the water quality in India under the National Water Quality Monitoring Programme. The water quality data for the years 2002-2008 has been analysed and monitoring locations exceeding the water quality criteria have been identified as polluted locations with respect to risk.

The programme focused on community involvement in assessing and evaluating water quality.

Organization: Ministry of Drinking Water & Sanitation, Government of India 

Venue: Tagore Hall, New Delhi

A one day conference of the State Secretaries in charge of rural development, rural water supply and rural sanitation is to be held under the Chairmanship of Shri Jairam Ramesh, Minister of Rural Development and Drinking Water and Sanitation, on Monday, September 26, 2011.

In the conference, new policy interventions for accelerating the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC), National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) and Indira Awas Yojna (IAY) and convergence between these schemes, MNREGS , and National Rural Livelihood Mission (Ajivika) will be discussed. 

Author: Anupam Mishra

"The water in springs of my hills is cool, Do not migrate from this land o my beloved.”

Organizer: The Water Channel


Date: September 28, 2011 (Click here to check what time that would be in your time zone.)

The Water Channel was launched at the World Water Forum in 2009 in Istanbul as a partnership of MetaMeta Communications, Nymphaea, UNESCO-IHE, and Cap-Net. The idea was to support education and awareness in water by making video material available that is often scattered and easily lost. It wanted to 'touch' its visitors and to help inspire them to work towards a world of better water management. The first year exceeded the expectations in terms of uptake and content! Joint projects were carried out with a wide variety of organizations and new partners joined in.