Sharing Experiences and Technologies on HWTS:safe water for the Last Mile! @IRDPR-Hyderabad on Feb 26-28, 2020

The first impression was the best impression. Any doubting Thomas thinking how seminars in a typical Desi Institute would be conducted will receive a rude shock. The best of room and food provided, the time line that was kept up and diverse mind-boggling sessions that happened at the Learning Exchange (Workshop) conducted at NIRDPR, Hyderabad which was conducted in collaboration with Sehgal Foundation, Gurugram and CAWST, Canada on Household Watertreatment and Safe Storage.

Well conducted by a trio of experienced professionals Lalit Sharma, Sehgal Foundation, Suneel Rajavaram, CAWSTand Dr R Ramesh Sakthivel of IRDPR, who were epitome of energy and ideas, made the whole session for all the 2 days very lively and active. Diverse participants from the organizing team of Sehgal Foundation, their vast experiences in household water treatment and safe storage project implementation coupled with an amazing rain water harvesting methodologies, or for that reason the way new scientists were trying to break tough the challenges of removal of arsenic and fluoride from drinking water made the Learning Exchange (workshop) very informative and productive. Dr. Robin Kumar Dutta, had developed a solution for arsenic and fluoride removal using simpler chemicals and I am seriously thinking on how best we can make it scalable and take it to the last mile, @Om Prakash Sharma ji from #WaterHarvest and his rich experience of 30 years in rural water remediation and presented his work.The big players from industry and branded market like Sawyer, Jujoi, Taralife, along with Sehgal Foundation's own inventions made the displays of various water purifiersand test kits and the display was very interesting! Finally as #CAWST Senior Global WASH Advisor, Suneel Rajavaram concluded that we as WASH Professionals should work to provide safe water to the rural and remote communities on a correct, continuous and consistent basis in an affordable way. He presented how HWTS technologies provide viable solutions in providing safe water to the rural population. The group came up the recommendations to be given to the #JalShakthi ministry and the summary is given below,

1.     A mapping on water table from all geographies in India should be completed. First we should analyze what type of source water is existing in a particular geography and what type of remedy is needed for that source.

2.     Gain more inroads to rural areas and markets. For that to happen, we need to have simpler designs of household water treatment products which can be used by rural people and finally have potable water on correct, continuous and consistent basis. That way, Watsan is happy to say our all models, be it standard, or fluoride removal or arsenic removal we have all the assembly details and demonstrations uploaded in Youtube, even for a lay man to follow:

Normal filter fitment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afQPfXit8kU&t=9s

Arsenic filter fitment instructions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq1VIXvVnHg&t=3s

Fluoride removal filter demo: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxzT6AYD3uA

Arsenic absorbent removal and replacement demo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKPW9Ct4Kno&t=5s

3.     Organize the necessary training and provide technical support on HWTS topics to the needy workers in the water sector. This is necessary to increase the knowledge on safe water, storage and handling.

4.     Indigenous manufacturing and less fall back on imports both technology and wares. We should adopt make in India approach.

5.     Have courses on HWTS in the educational institutions and conduct research in time bound projects.

6.     As a group, we need to develop robust strategies for HWTS Scale-up and after that plan and execute the strategy as we need to really tackle the water challenges in a big way.

7.     Blindly adapting R.O for every and any water should be controlled and a new description of what really is potable and what not, with reference to the Indian Context of water available, should be made as the standard and not just ape foreign standards and equipment which are of no consequences in reaching to the last mile population

8.     Most importantly, as we #Watsan referred, the #GST lexicon has no word called 'water purifier or water filter', rather we are selling at an ambiguous name of "industrial gas and liquid purification system. Agreed water is a liquid but why such complicated classification, rather simply making it as 'water purifiers'. Especially the non-electricity based purifiers should be labelled with 5% GST, as it reaches the rural and urban slum population, rather than its present rate of 18%. This would make the purifiers be given at much lesser prices to the common man.

Finally all agreed that such meetings and deliberations should happen again. It was agreed that a household water treatment and safe storage network should be established for India and members suggested that Sehgal Foundation should coordinate the efforts of the network. CAWST, Canada will provide the necessary support to Sehgal Foundation and HWTS network. NIRDPR, a government institution could work with the relevant ministries of GOI on safe water needs of rural population and in providing affordable and appropriate solutions like household water treatment and safe storage to the population.

I forgot to add a most important observation within the NIRPPR Campus: Their new center for development under Dr. Sakthivel. All the buildings were 'experimental' native material structures, but were typical models with different combinations! Round vaulted roof, of the rain harvesting centre from where the Sehgal foundation functions, or the working office room of Dr.Sakthivel himself with no beams or lintel, but free standing ceiling, rooms built with bottles in between, roof built with round conical roof tile cups, room built with pressed bricks, rooms built with pressed laterite, room built exclusively with bamboo and its produce, the list goes on and on! Not only they use these rooms but also have training sessions to teach people how to construct these types of structures, Dr Sakthivel has also developed hydroponic gardens with less water and more yield per square meter, he has given stalls and offices to many rural startups to function from the same campus and also invites more rural entrepreneurs to his hub!

Here is a man and his mission, who walk the talk! The campus was a new revelation for heritage enthusiasts like me, as we build and restore temples and agraharam houses using native lime mortar mix, sans cement or modern tiles and paints! That's another story to start and write about.. Those interested may see our NGO website: www.conserveheritage.org

The photos I took mostly are from that innovation center, given below, participants must be wondering where the seminar photos are, they are soon to be added by #IRDPR itself ... Keep checking here till they are uploaded :)

Photos can be seen at: https://photos.app.goo.gl/n7akisp67b8PXoP9A

and thanks for Suneel Rajavaram ji of CAWST for making certain additions and changes in the article, as requested by me, to give suggestions to make this report more meaningful. He also had given me some more photos

https://photos.app.goo.gl/i5vPBUh66L5wigrP9