Citizens' Rights and Duties

Forwarded to the Portal by : Amrat Singh, PARIVARTAN A new training programme has been launched by Parivartan.

A slow sand filter built with Japanese aid is running out of use because the community cannot repair the broken pump. Can we help organize the community to take charge of its asset?!

Drop by drop ACCESS & HUL in Base of Pyramid Partnership for Safe Drinking Water for Rural Poor:

Yakalakshmi lives in Nekkunda village, Telengana region in Andhra Pradesh with her husband and two children. Though she has water piped to her house by the village panchayat, her entire family fell ill for a month last monsoon season by drinking water directly from the tap. "We all got high fever and severe diarrhea", she says, "we had to spend around Rs. 4000 on health care, which was very difficult for us". So when she got the opportunity this January to buy an effective water purifier through her Self Help Group (SHG) on an installment basis she was one of the first to sign up. Yakalakshmi is just one of the beneficiaries of a unique tie-up between ACCESS Development Services, a microfinance technical services non-profit organization, and Hindustan Unilever Limited, one of the country's largest producers of fast-moving consumer goods, to provide safe drinking water to rural poor. "Most of these villages have piped water or boreholes", says Padma, Project Coordinator at a local NGO, PEACE, "the problem is that tests by UNICEF in this district show that up to 70 percent of these sources are contaminated."The contamination gets even worse during the rainy season, especially due to poor sanitation and waste-management practices.

In Vijaywada a determined effort has been made by the municipality to subsidize individual connection charge for the poor and break this entry barrier which prevents them from accessing piped water. An explanation of the details of the project. Should this be the approach for ensuring water for all?

According to David Foster, it is the cost of 'free' water :

Some video clippings of the Arkavathy Janadesh Yatra, a river walk along the entire length of the Arkavathy river outside Bangalore, to draw attention to this dying river.

There is a spurt of gastro-enteritis in the city today. Residents think that it is the contaminated mains supply from the BWSSB that is the source of the gastroenteritis. The Bangalore water supply and Sewerage Board thinks it is water bought by residents from the private water tankers that is the cause but then seems to change its mind.

South Africa: New Water Management System in Cape BuaNews (Tshwane) 5 December 2007 Cape Town The City of Cape Town is introducing a new water demand management system for its residents. It consists of a water management device, which is installed in residents' houses, and a central control team in the City administration that regulates the functioning of these devices with the help of a computer set up. "This system will help our customers to save water and to manage their monthly water bills, and it will help the city to manage debt," the city council said. It will also help residents to identify any leaks and have them fixed, instead of running up a huge water bill and then being unable to pay.