Sustainability

The pandemic has wrought havoc on the entire world. Pessimism, suffering, unemployment, hunger and poverty resound in all corners. To survive is a physical, mental and financial battle. And every family and individual has an anecdote to narrate that speaks volumes about their combat strategy, losses and victories.

A quick search for the word data on India Water Portal results in a flood of queries - people are looking for water data - for specific villages, cities or for the entire country. 

The environment versus development debate has increasingly become more polarised, with discussions in the public domain revealing a stark contrast of views. Development has increasingly come to symbolise ‘doing something’ and ensuring ‘visible outputs’, largely in the form of infrastructure.

Sita Behera, the 35-year-old mother of two lives in the Radhamadhavapura unauthorised slum in Angul. She is the President of the Ward Sanitation Committee (WSC) that is leading the work on making the slum open defecation free. Driven by the desire to improve the living conditions for her children and the neighbourhood at large, she prompted 140 families to construct latrines over two years.

Friedrich Nietzsche famously wrote that he who has a ‘why’ to live can bear almost any ‘how'. A strong reason, motivation (why) and curiosity lead to actions that pave the path (how) to achieve any desired goal.

Tucked away in the slums of Dhenkanal, a small community offers a glimpse of how sanitation solutions have changed hundreds of lives for the better. Till recently, post rains in the absence of proper drainage, the clogged lanes were causing a lot of inconvenience to the residents of Parhatiya Sahi slum.

People in remote hamlets left out by previous schemes like Swajal and Sector Wide Approach Program of the Uttarakhand Jal Nigam and Uttarakhand Jal Sansthan longed for household-level piped water supply for drinking and domestic purposes.

About the conference: 

There aren’t many studies on understanding the socio-economic impact of river pollution, and the handful of those available miss out on capturing the voices of the local communities who are most affected by river pollution.

IUKWC has put together a set of interviews with researchers from six Indo-UK projects that provide an overview of their research outputs and how these can support water operations, management and/or decision making.

Fully interactive - interviewees will be available to answer your questions during two hour windows