• About the programme
• Programme strategy
• Activities and Events

Village level chlorination

Groundwater in Gujarat is contaminated due to depleting water tables and salinity ingress. A recent habitation survey has found 7,675 habitations suffering from high levels of fluoride, nitrate and salinity in groundwater. Besides, contamination of drinking water owing to poor hygiene and sanitation contributes to a large number of illnesses. For tackling drinking water problems, the state is shifting from groundwater-based water supply systems to surface water-based systems that are planned, owned and managed by the community. Simultaneously, a Fluoride Mitigation Programme is being implemented across all endemic districts of the State. To decentralize water testing and enable the community to keep vigilance on the quality of water right at the village level, a community-based water quality surveillance programme has been initiated in the project villages of WASMO since long. In order to re-establish the relation between poor sanitation and drinking water contamination, a UNICEF supported
M-DAWS survey has recently been launched.

1.IEC activities: Awareness is generated among the rural communities through IEC activities such as audio-visuals and print media, door to door contact of villagers, convening gram sabhas, performing street plays, folk lore etc. Through these activities, the communities are made aware of safe drinking water and community-based water quality surveillance. Exhaustive IEC campaigns and chlorination drives taken up during flood in year 2006, ensured prevention of water borne diseases in Flood-affected villages of Gujarat. Besides, promotion of sanitation through village sanitary surveys being carried out every year, especially during monsoon, helps prevent water borne diseases.

2.Capacity building and team building: To initiate the programme, capacity building of all State, district and block level players is being done through ToTs. State level workshops had been conducted to launch this. At grass root level, through intensive IEC activities, a village water quality team is being formed in each village. To form this team, around 5 such villagers are being identified who are ready to shoulder the responsibility of village water testing. These may include village anganwadi worker, an active Pani Samiti member, school teacher, +7 student, village pump operator, health worker, women from SHG or any such influential person from the village. Thereafter, the team is trained for testing samples from all village drinking water sources. Cumulatively, upto the end of December ‘06, WQ teams have been formed in 956 villages (see: district-wise village water quality teams).

3.Provision of field test kit to each village: Field test kits will essentially be distributed among various stakeholders at State and District levels, as well as 2 will be given in each block and 1 to each Gram Panchayat. With demonstration and training for on-field water testing, a field test kit is being provided to each village water quality team. Field test kits have been provided to 575 villages in the State so far (see: district-wise village water quality teams). The team is expected to test 100% drinking water sources of the village, initially on a quarterly basis under supervision of the ISA, and thereafter, at least biyearly. The data thus generated will be reported by the respective Pani Samiti/Gram Panchayat to the district level coordinator (in DWSC) in the first week of every quarter.

4.Community mobilization for operation and maintenance of kits: Once the village is provided with a field test kit, meeting the expense of refilling it subsequently is the onus of the Pani Samiti/Gram Panchayat. Hence, through awareness generation and sensitization, the village community is being mobilized to raise funds for meeting the O&M expense of village water quality surveillance. It is estimated that a contribution of Re. 1 per family per month could meet most of the expenses such as refilling of field test kit, cost of disinfectants, minor remedial expenses etc., and could also be enough to pay an annual honorarium to the village water quality team as an incentive by the community. IEC and HRD activities including community mobilization for O&M are in progress in around 2584 villages.

5.Water quality testing following Catchment Area Approach (CAA): The village WQ data submitted at the district level is compiled at each DWSC in the prescribed format/ software and submitted at the state level. On the basis of the village WQ testing results provided, SRI will direct the district laboratories to collect samples of 30% unfit samples of drinking water sources in the villages and test them in respective district laboratories. Further, the SRI will cross verify 10% of the samples found unfit in district laboratory testing.

7.Identification of safe/ unsafe drinking water sources: All drinking water sources, including local public and private sources as well as government supported ones in the village are shown on a village map. After each of these sources is tested, the test results, indicating whether a particular source yields potable water or not, are displayed on the map. Such a map is displayed in the village Gram Panchayat office or a public place from where it can be accessible to all villagers and they can decide from which source to avail of drinking water. Such mapping has been done in 802 villages (see: district-wise village water quality teams). The results of WQ testing may vary when tested in each quarter. Hence, the displayed results will correspondingly be updated in each quarter. On the basis of the consolidated water quality data, the unsafe/ safe drinking water sources in village will be identified and marked periodically.

• Flood in year 2006
• State level workshops
• Fluoride Mitigation Programme
• M-DAWS survey

Around 16 districts were affected out of which Surat, Bharuch, Kheda, Anand, Panchmahal, Mehsana and Banaskantha suffered maximum damage. The field officers of WASMO were immediately deployed to take necessary actions with regard to maintenance of drinking water quality and hygiene in the affected villages. Chlorination in drinking water was closely monitored. In coordination with health, 1,00,000 chlorine tablets were procured which were used for distribution among flood affected villages especially in Kheda, Anand and Surat. In villages where the health workers were yet to reach, Pani Samiti members and Gram Panchayats were given chlorination material such as tablets and sodium hypochlorite solution attained with support from UNICEF. Wherever Chlorine tablets could not suffice the need at household level, Sodium hypochlorite solution was distributed through a novel technique in dropper bottles such that pouring two drops in one water-container could chlorinate the water optimally in each household. In this manner, one dropper bottle could suffice the need of one whole habitation. Besides this, IEC material was distributed on a large scale. Masses of people were appealed to chlorinate their drinking water and maintain hygiene in and around their houses through radio and TV media. Pamphlets suggesting actions to be taken to prevent water borne diseases were prepared specially for this purpose and distributed on a large scale in each village.

State level workshops:

Water and Sanitation Management Organisation (WASMO), with support from UNICEF organised a two day workshop on September 18-19, 2006 at Gandhinagar. The objective of the workshop was to sensitise district level teams of 10 districts for capacity building of communities for drinking water quality surveillance and to make them aware regarding their role in effective implementation of the National water quality programme. GoI representatives, Executive Engineers/Member Secretaries of District Water and Sanitation Committee, ISA representatives, core team members and officials, UNICEF representatives and members of GWSSB and WASMO participated in the workshop.

An overview of implementation of National Rural Drinking Water Quality Monitoring and Surveillance Programme in Gujarat and the strategy adopted at state and district level for ensuring consumption of safe drinking water by the people was presented during the workshop. Whereas, UNICEF deliberated on water safety plans to reduce the health hazards caused by water borne diseases and poor sanitation. In the Key note Address Secretary, Water Supply apprised the participants of efforts of GoG for providing safe water during the calamities - earthquake and floods, much before the launch of surveillance programme at national level. The address stressed on profound community involvement for sustainability of the programme so as to bypass outside intervention for containing water borne diseases.

Some of the important issues discussed following various presentations by the speakers were – establishment and upgradation of district level water testing laboratories, parameters to be tested at village level, periodicity of testing water samples, grievance redressal mechanism for water quality issues, disparity between urban and rural water supply, water borne diseases in context of surface and sub-surface water, parameter checks with reference to different water testing kits, effective and popular media for disseminating water quality awareness messages etc. For enabling district teams to have clarity regarding their roles and responsibilities as ISAs, suppliers, facilitator’s sub-groups were formed for role play activities and theme specific plenary sessions as well as brief presentations.

The workshop was then replicated for the remaining districts of Gujarat on October 12, 2006 in Mehsana.

National Rural Drinking Water Quality Monitoring and Surveillance Programme

Presented by: D. Rajsekhar, Assistant Advisor, Department of Drinking Water Supply, GoI
Dr. Sunder Raj, Consultant, Department of Drinking Water Supply, GoI

Water quality monitoring and surveillance - concept and implementation strategy
Presented by: Chaitali Pandit, Assistant Coordinator, Water Quality unit, WASMO Download PDF

Field Test Kit distribution among villages - methodology and indicators (use of field test kits)
Presented by: V. M. Shah, Manager, Water Quality unit, WASMO Download PDF

As per latest survey, out of 7,675 quality-affected habitations in the State, 1,335 are affected by excessive Nitrate, 2,508 by high levels of Salinity and maximum nos. of habitations - 4,187, are affected by excessive Fluoride in ground water.

Nitrate contamination has more to do with man’s interventions in most cases, which could be controlled simply by awareness generation. Also, Salinity, though a natural occurrence, can be detected by the taste of water. However, Fluoride, besides being the predominant water quality problem, renders no identifiable characteristic such as colour, odour or taste to water, due to which it discreetly causes health problems when consumed in excess. Thus, while tackling its water quality problems, the State prioritized initiation of a ‘Fluoride Mitigation Programme’ for rural Gujarat. The State’s interventions in tackling the problem of Fluoride in drinking water have been discussed at length in a book: ‘Initiatives for Fluoride Mitigation’.  Download PDF

A training programme was held by UNICEF and PHED Bhopal from 28 August to 1 September, 2006 through which the Multi District Assessment of Water Safety (M-DAWS) was launched among five participating states of India including Gujarat. The five-day training programme was attended by the following participants from Gujarat:

Based on the training programme, this team of Gujarat devised an action plan to implement the survey in Vadodara district of Gujarat on a pilot basis.

The programme was launched in Vadodara with training for district officials in the first week of February ’07. Thereafter, the survey followed in next week. Through this survey, 400 samples from technology types most extensively utilized for drinking are being tested from different villages of Vadodara on a random basis. The analysis results are expected to give a broad idea of drinking water quality status in Vadodara. It is expected that analysis of all 400 samples would complete by end of March 2007.Through this survey, the State intends to combat the threat imposed on public health by faecal contamination in water supplies. The survey would provide:

• An insight into how to plan state level water quality monitoring and surveillance programme based on reliable water quality baseline that includes an assessment of faecal contamination of public and private water supplies and

• Grounds to link the results of sanitary surveillance and water testing to an appropriate response in terms of mitigation.