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Water, water, everywhere... or is it? |
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Scene 1: The alarm goes off at 5:00 am. The birds haven’t yet been roused from their sleep. The sky is untouched by the dawn, yet Mr. Sharma, a retired school teacher gets up groggy with sleep, not feeling very up to the mark. He really has no choice here but to leave his warm quilt behind. He switches on the booster and waits for the sound… the much-awaited sound… the sound of water gushing down the underground water tank in his house in South Delhi. But to no avail. He dozes on and off and finally he hears it at 6:30 am at last. A mad rush then ensues to collect as much as possible in the half hours’ water supply window for the day. Scene 2: Mrs. Kapoor is happy to be living in an apartment community in Dwarka, an up-and-coming residential area. Water supply has never been an issue for her, however, on hearing that the water has high levels of TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) – a flyer came through her door informing her about it from a water purification company -- she promptly set out to buy an RO (Reverse Osmosis) water purification unit for her house. Today, for every litre of water that the RO unit purifies in her home, 1.5 litre (60%) goes down the drain-literally! Scene 3: Unbeknownst to Ishwari, a lack of access to safe drinking water has been harming her family’s health, leading to frequent stomachaches, diarrhea and her children’s absences from school due to health issues. This, in turn, is affecting their education and future economic prospects. Ishwari lives in one of the many urban slums in Indian cities and can’t afford to use a filter or even to boil her family’s drinking water. She has to use water directly from bore well. Regular ill health and morbidity is affecting her family’s livelihood on a day-to-day basis. Scene 4: The bell rings in a school in Udaipur, Rajasthan announcing the break for lunch and a stream of students come rushing out from their classes, clambering to reach the drinking water taps in their school. Much goes down their parched throats but most finds its way to the drains. Rains come sporadically, but most of the rainwater runs off. The gardener complains that his plants are not getting adequate water and that they are dying. |
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T here are loads of such scenes happening all over the country. Water is not just essential to our life but has become our life! Everything, our lives, our daily activities revolve around water – getting access to it, getting enough of it or even getting safe clean drinking water – is of primary concern to all of u s.
CLEAN-India (Community Led Environment
Action Network) is a nation-wide environment Assessment, Awareness,
Action and Advocacy programme that was initiated in 1996 with a vision
of developing cleaner environment for our towns and cities through a
network of schools and NGOs linked with government, business, academic
and other institutions. What started with five schools in Delhi has now
become a growing network of one million students, 400 schools, 30 NGOs,
hundreds of communities and government support in 78 Indian cities.
www.cleanindia.org
Amongst many environmental issues
addressed by CLEAN-India, one of the most pertinent ones is the issue of
water quality, quantity, its purification, conservation and
augmentation. The process is systematic, by assessing the state of water
quality and quantity, creating awareness, taking remedial actions and
then initiating policy interventions through advocacy. Some key achievements so far have been: under Assessment: • Children, youth and community members have been instrumental in monitoring 2133 sites for water quality through monitoring by Jal-TARA water testing kit (developed by Development Alternatives) across India • Interactive Digitised water quality maps have been prepared for 20 cities which provide information on the water quality of a site at the click of a button
under Awareness and Advocacy: • Communities, being aware of their environment quality, consciously build local pressure to bring about behavioural change. In Shillong the students and the community members have been involved in cleaning the local streams; In Aurangabad, public tanks are regularly cleaned and chlorinated by the municipality. • CLEAN-Sagar has been working with the Municipal Corporation for setting up rainwater harvesting structures in the town and many other such examples.
under Action:
Revisiting the scenes…
The above are just some examples of the
potential of the CLEAN-India programme. Some ground has been covered in
the field of water monitoring and management but loads more remain to be
done.
CLEAN-India is working towards providing
water for all for ever. We hope you join us in this quest too.
Meghna Das
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