Sanitation

The water and sanitation management organisation (WASMO) works by empowering communities to manage their local water sources, drinking water supply and environmental sanitation in the state.

CEPT University has received a major grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to research urban water and sanitation issues. The aim of this programme is to develop better information on water and sanitation performance at the local level. This in turn will be used by the state and local governments for extending services to the poor, strive for financial viability, and improve reliability and quality of services.

The research will focus on the use of performance indicators and benchmarks to facilitate consistent reporting, monitoring, planning, budgeting, and investing in water and sanitation services in all urban areas of Gujarat and Maharashtra states. Lessons from the project will be disseminated to other states and at the national level.

CEPT University with its partners will work with state and local governments to develop a reliable and sustainable Performance Assessment System (PAS) for urban water and sanitation services. The PAS envisaged in this project includes: Performance Measurement, Performance Monitoring, and Performance Improvement.

The Hesperian Foundation is a non-profit publisher of books and newsletters for community-based health care. Their first book, Where There Is No Doctor, is considered to be one of the most accessible and widely used community health books in the world.

My name is Deb Gangoapdhyay and I am a student at Yale University. I and a fellow student, Yuzhe Feng, have received funding to conduct a water quality and sanitation project in the Krisnanagar district of Nadia, West Bengal.

The Mazhapolima program is quite unique; it aims to (eventually) recharge about 4.5 lakh dug wells in the district, and do this through community awareness and action. It's driven by the District Collector, Mr. Kurian Baby, who strongly advocates sustainable, local development & innovation.

A Gram Panchayat (GP) in Kerala is fairly large, and has a population of approximately 20000 people, as compared to about 10000 in Karnataka, and about 700 in Uttar Pradesh. GP's have ward divisions, about 20 of them per GP. Each GP has a staff of at least 6-8 people. The GP that we visited - Adat, had about 12 employees , 4 lower division clerks, 3 upper division clerks, 1 Joint Secretary, 1 Secretary, 2 peons and 1 sweeper. Except for the peons and the sweeper, the employees are all usually SSLC-pass, but here in Adat they were mostly graduates. For salaries alone, the GP spends about Rs 1.5 lakhs per month. Adat GP executed 124 projects last year. The GP's annual budget was Rs 1.40 crores, not including NREGA funds. Out of this, Rs 40 lakhs was raised by the GP through property taxes etc. Most other parts of the country, GP budgets are only about 5 to 10 lakhs. The Adat GP office was a large 2 storeyed building. Mr Vijayan, the Joint Secretary proudly showed us their awards, which filled up an entire wall. {C}

A member of the PLC Watsan group Dhani behn, has built an Ecosan toilet for herself - one of the first in Gujarat-about a year back. This is one of the best toilets on Ecosan I have seen and the simple and elegant story of the same is hugely impressive. It is located in Bhavnagar Saurashtra - Gujarat. She was part of an exposure visit of PLC WatSan to a MYRADA project in Karnataka implementing ecosan. She has one simple reason for use of the toilet- it's less use of water. Even with a twin pit pour flush about 5 litres of water gets used for a single flush and in a day 20 to 25 litres of water can get flushed by one person. Even this is too much in arid and semi arid Gujarat. The transfer of knowledge has resulted in an elegant solution to an otherwise vexing issue that can be made applicable on a larger scale across the state. There exists tremendous interest in Eco-san from other parts of Gujarat too including the coast with its high and saline water table and the tribal hamlets with its hard rock terrain and the rest with a lot of water shortage. {C}

"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.

WaterAid is a leading independent organisation which enables the world's poorest people to gain access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene education.

A series of Press Releases from sources indicate the progress on the matter of the Ganga River Basin Authority. It makes for an informative read with a candid discussion in the comments section!

Ganga River Basin Authority for Comprehensive Management of the Ganga Basin

PIB Friday, February 20, 2009
Ministry of Environment and Forests

 AUTHORITY ENSURES DEVELOPMENT REQUIREMENTS IN SUSTAINABLE MANNER ENSURING ECOLOGICAL FLOWS IN GANGA

The Government today announced the setting up of a National Ganga River Basin Authority. A statement to this effect was made in Parliament by Shri Namo Narain Meena, Minister of State in the Ministry of Environment & Forests. A Notification in this regard is also being issued by the Government.