The Issue

India has the largest number of people without access to safe water at 75.8 million individuals. While such large population seek out for other unregulated sources for drinking water, the quality of drinking water is perilously low. India ranks at 120 out of 122 countries based on water quality. While the numbers on access and quality of drinking water in India tend to be dormant the magnitude of the issue translates into a perilous and alarming situation.

Unsafe/low quality drinking water is the one biggest contributor to many water borne diseases. The lack of access to safe drinking water in India causes 1.5 million children in India to die annually due to diarrhoea and an additional 3.5 million individuals affected by water borne diseases. The economic burden too annually of an issue so large is a loss of about $5 billion caused by the 73 million working days lost1.

While the situation is grave, 82 percent of India’s rural population continue to depend on groundwater, which is undergoing a change to an extent that its use is hazardous. The chemical composition of the soil (fluoride, arsenic etc), the discharges from industrial and agricultural activities and the underdeveloped sanitation facilities are impacting the quality of groundwater in the rural as well as urban regions.

The Solution

 While the solutions to filtering water have been around for decades, the critical aspects of applying such solutions in the underserved communities are

1. Community partnership and making the community a crucial stakeholder

2. Efficient service delivery even at the last mile

3. Mobilising the community towards behaviour change and establishing value for the intervention

By adopting a decentralised approach, NCWS deploys a suitable water filtration facility at the community level and focuses on community partnership, efficient service delivery and community mobilisation for the sustainability of the intervention.

The decentralised water filtration facility is called a Community Water Centre (CWC) and is equipped with treating the existing contaminants in drinking water for the entire community

The Model:

A CWC is an outcome of a tripartite model, where

• Community – provides access to land, electricity and raw water
• Donor – provides the capital expenditure for the machinery and structure
• NCWS – operates and maintains the CWC, ensures water quality at WHO potable water standards and constantly engages with the community for behaviour change.
• The model ensures safe drinking water to the communities at an affordable price of about Rs. 5 – 10 for 20 litres. The revenue generated is utilised for the operations and maintenance of the water centre.
• Impact: NCWS so far,
• Has installed over 500 Community Water Centres (CWCs) in regions with water contamination
• Have built capacity of 1 – 2 individuals on average, per CWC, at the local community level.
• Have handed 329 CWCs to the local communities after building local capacity for over a 5 – 7 year period
• Have currently over 260 CWCs in operation
• Impacted the lives of over 700,000 individuals