Treatment and Purification

This paper published in the journal

This presentation by Sekhar Raghavan, Director, Rain Centre, Chennai, India highlights the experiences and the challenges faced by Rain Centre in introducing ecological sanitation in the coastal town of Kovalam near Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India along with Coastal and Rural development Trust (CRDT), a small non profit centre based in Kovalam .

The coastal town of Kovalam was selected as a case because of its peculiar situation with its location in a fast developing  peri-urban area in proximity to Chennai city characterised by good groundwater situation, adequate land and housing facilities, but with a glaring and urgent need and demand for toilets.

This document by the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation deals with the guidelines of the Central Rural Sanitation Programme (CRSP) and Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC). India’s first nationwide programme of rural sanitation, the CRSP was launched in 1986, while TSC was launched in 1999 with the aim of ending open defecation.

This document by the World Health Organisation, for the first time, sets forth global criteria to evaluate whether a household water treatment option reduces waterborne pathogens sufficiently to protect health. Through use of a risk-based framework and by emphasizing the philosophy of incremental improvement, it is intended to provide implementers and policy-makers with an evidence-based and pragmatic approach to select options suited to local conditions.

Household water treatment interventions may play an important role in protecting public health where existing water sources, including those delivered via a piped network or other improved sources, are untreated, are not treated properly or become contaminated during distribution or storage. Household water treatment applications are a range of technologies, devices or methods employed for the purposes of treating water at the household level or at the point of use in other settings, such as schools, health-care facilities and other community locations. Point-of-use water treatment is another term used for household water treatment.

Guest post: Shwetha Kamath (India Water Portal Volunteer)

About 74 per cent of India's total population, currently about 1.25 billion, live in rural areas. More than one third of the water available to them is not potable. In a grim reminder that poor quality of drinking water leads to serious health problems, India has admitted that about 180,000 rural populated areas are afflicted by diseases which are caused due to impure, toxic organic and inorganic substances including tri-halo methane, chlorine, etc. Some states have reported multiple contaminations in drinking water and there is no doubt that the current water situation in India will get much, much worse unless suitable solutions are sought. Most existing purification methods not only remove the impurities but drain out the essential minerals as well. Moreover, they are expensive and require extensive maintenance. Thus a natural filter comprising of bamboo, gravel, pebble and other locally available natural adsorbents is a great alternative to carry out water purification. What makes this filter unique is the use of bamboo charcoal which is not commonly used in any filter designed for domestic purposes.

Guest post by: Mrinalini Goswami

Both the purifiers already have identified their space in the niche of household water treatment establishing themselves as competitive technologies. Brief highlights of both the purifiers are compiled in the table below:   

Objective: To monitor and control from a single point the water quantity, quality, treatment and distribution process in real time for the entire city.

This project caters to the need for a real time water auditing, monitoring and control system for the entire city of Pimpri Chinchwad spread over 171 sq.kms with a water supply of 428 ML per day.

This integrates the third edition, which was published in 2004, with both the first addendum to the third edition, published in 2006, and the second addendum to the third edition, published in 2008. It supersedes previous editions of the Guidelines and previous International Standards. 

This edition of the Guidelines further develops concepts, approaches and information introduced in previous editions, including the comprehensive preventive risk management approach for ensuring drinking-water quality.

Ever since Schumacher wrote his now very, very famous book small is there has in my mind been a question of the appropriateness of the solutions we urban educated types posit for rural ‘problems’.

This report by the Water and Sanitation Management Organisation (WASMO) is based on the analysis of Multi-District Assessment of Water Safety (M-DAWS) carried out in 8 districts of Gujarat (Vadodara,Valsad, Mehsana, Gandhinagar, Kachchh, Surat, Ahmedabad and Dangs) , where ensuring adequate and safe drinking water to the people has been looked upon as a huge challenge needing urgent action during years 2007 and 2008 .

The Multi-District Assessment of Water Safety (M-DAWS) programme was undertaken by Water and Sanitation Management Organisation (WASMO) with financial and technical support from UNICEF.