An update on ecosan work in India

Prakash Kumar, an ecological sanitation consultant with UNICEF/Stockholm Institute provides an update on some recent work on ecological sanitation in India:

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1. We are in the process of supporting I I T Delhi for nutrient recovery project for developing complete process for converting liquid urine in to the crystalline form.
2. We are in the final stage of supporting SCOPE for demonstration of ecosan toilet in a govt. middle school at Musiri, Trichy.
3. Comprehensive evaluation of Tamilnadu ecosan project will be taken up shortly.
4. Last batch of training of CCDU officials have been completed . This year total 5 batches got training on ecosan.
5. Tamilnadu ecosan network has been formed and they are working on compiling their work on ecosan in Tamilnadu.
6. Important case studies on ecosan are being documented  and will be ready by next month in electronic form.
7. Centre for science and environment is conducting training for 16 batches of municipal engineers on urban  sustainable technologies and Ecosan has been included as one.
8. Separate session on ecosan event planned for annual water forum to be organized at Kolkata from 28-30 th october.
9. Arghyam organized a very fruitful discussion on ecosan at Bangalore in which member national Planning commission Mr. Mihir Shah participated and took note of its relevance in current situation  and very supportive of it to be mainstreamed in the ongoing TSC.
10. "Mainstreaming sustainable sanitation in India with TSC" a joint note prepared  by myself and cecilia ruben  for the consideration of DDWS and also it is included in IWA Mexico 2009.
11. UNICEF and SEI will be  organizing national consultative workshop on preparation of comprehensive manual for ecosan for DDWS , Govt. of India from 26-27th November.
12. Guide book for construction of ecosan toilet in english and Hindi and the CD has been printed an distributed.
13. Translation of ecological sanitation in Hindi and Kannada is under way.
14. NRCB research on urine utilization on Banana is complete an full report will be available next month.

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