Need

54% of households in rural Udaipur drink from unhygienic open wells, and during summer many water sources dry up. At the same time, a staggering 92% of rural households lack toilets. The practice of open defecation poses health risks and safety concerns.

Seva Mandir’s Response

Seva Mandir has helped 3,200 families - some 16,000 people - gain access to clean drinking water over the past eight years. Building better water sources not only makes people healthier, it eliminates hours of daily drudgery for women who must carry water to the home. Seva Mandir builds bespoke water systems including tanks, restored wells and household biosand filters.

In parallel with our work on water, Seva Mandir has built sanitation facilities for over 650 families (about 3,250 people). This includes 242 pioneering Ecosan toilets - zero-water toilets uniquely suited to Udaipur’s desert climate - for which Seva Mandir is the Government’s official Implementing Agency throughout the district. To ensure toilets are used - not just constructed - we build toilets on a purely demand-driven basis, do months of preliminary demonstration and discussion, and ask for a monetary and labor contribution from beneficiaries.