Prayukti international partnering with Prism India, Institute of Remote Sciences-IRS (Jahangirnagar University – Bangladesh) & Naireeta Services Pvt. Ltd. (INDIA) has implemented an innovative technology – Amritadhara as its recent project at Basirhat to provide safe drinking water in an area predominantly waterlogged for most of the year.
It is user-friendly and low-cost technology for the common people. It can promote the local employment drive. It follows WHO recommended HWTS policies. Waterborne and skin diseases are on the rise because of inundation, subsequent stagnation & submergence from frequent flooding during monsoon; absence of proper solid waste management practices lead to filthy, stinking, and breeding grounds for vectors and cease the minimum access to safe drinking water mainly for poor & marginalized families.
“AmritaDhara” can effectively remove arsenic/fluoride, iron, hardness and bacteria from available water. It also reduces Salinity upto a significant level and removes brownish colour, bad odour. It has been developed and designed to treat Surface Water, Sub-surface Water and Ground Water as per the need of the people.
The key part of the Innovation:
- Drinking water from poor quality water;
- It is user-friendly.
- It’s affordable as the cost comes to Rs 0.015per litre of safe drinking water;
- Entire Water supply system can be managed by women;
- Dependency on energy, skilled people, accessories are removed;
- Provide social entrepreneurship opportunities for the unemployed;
- Follows WHO recommended Household Water Treatment & Safe Storage (HWTS).
- This has potentials to change behavioural pattern(s) of maintaining Personal Hygiene;
- Full compliance to regulatory norms.
The goal is to reduce water-borne diseases and increase Nutritional & Health status. Protein- energy malnutrition decreases children’s resistance to infections, including water related diarrheal diseases which can be addressed through assured access to safe drinking water. Knowledge transfer and change of perceptions help people to understand the difference between filter & purifier, the importance of treatment & safe storage.
The Do-it-Yourself model removes dependency on energy, skilled people, accessories and affordability. This in turn would have an impact on behavior change and encourage the community to take initiatives in spearheading the cause. Since it’s arsenic prone area, the added benefit for the community would be to get arsenic-free water.
Many families have hand pumps but due to poor quality of water the women mostly walk to fetch water from the deep tube well, this drudgery to women will be reduced if they use AmritaDhara.
The above intervention is phase – 1 of the overall strategy. During the next phase, the team envisages to develop remedial action plan to eliminate the waterlogging problem at the project area and develops a set up priorities action plan to resolve similar problems in other parts of country and internationally.
By Rangeet Mitra, Senior Consultant, Prayukti International
Reference: https://www.prakati.in/amritadhara-a-key-to-safe-drinking-water/