Water covers 71 per cent of the Earth’s surface but only 2.5 per cent of the Earth’s water is available as freshwater and more than 1.2 billion people still lack access to safe drinking water. As per estimates available, by the year 2025 more than half of the world population will be facing water-based vulnerability and by 2030, in some developing countries of the world, water demand will surpass supply by 50 per cent.
The Millennium Development Goals within the United Nations Millennium Declaration resolved to halve the proportion of people who do not have access to safe drinking water by the year 2015. It is high time that all organisations involved in ensuring safe drinking water should assess what has been achieved so far and what more is required to be done.
The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights had earlier declared that the human right to water entitles everyone to adequate and safe, accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic use. Notably, the World Water Day 2007 was dedicated to the theme “Coping with water scarcity” through efficient and equitable management of scarce water resources at international and local levels as well. In order to provide safe drinking water, various government agencies across the world and NGOs are doing all they can do to minimise the proportion of people who do not have access to safe drinking water.
In India too, efforts are on to ensure safe drinking water and along with government schemes social help groups and big or small NGOs are contributing to this cause. Most of them can even do better if they are provided with moral and material support in their endeavour either by the government or by any other national and international agencies.
Human Welfare Foundation, a Delhi based NGO, on the very theme of ‘think globally and act locally’ decided to provide safe drinking water in India’s remotest areas where safe drinking water until yesterday was a distant dream. This small but significant step can go a long way if assisted and encouraged by all those who want to ensure safe drinking water to one and all.
HWF, under its Vision 2016 programme, has so far installed more than 1000 pumps in 12 states. The hand pumps have been installed in remote areas where there was no access to safe drinking water and people especially women had to travel long distances to get water. As many as 251 pumps in West Bengal, 63 in Madhya Pradesh, 179 in Bihar, 78 in Chhattisgarh, 180 in Uttar Pradesh, 80 in Jharkhand, 185 in Assam, 7 in Haryana and 2 in Karnataka have already been installed.
Asif Anwar, Project Coordinator, HWF, while talking to Radiance, said in North India where there is no arrangement of safe drinking water in remote areas, HWF has installed hand pumps in these areas after complete survey and necessity. “We took assistance of PHE Department of the respective areas. These hand pumps are installed in public places to provide water for maximum people,” he said.
“For example, in Jharkhand, there is a place called Jamtara where there was no water arrangement from the government side. People from these villages used to dig ground beside a small river crossing and avail drinking water from there which is 3 kms away from the villages. Most of the women used to carry water and because of that most of their time got wasted; and it is also unhygienic for them. We used to focus on those places where women faced difficulty in fetching water easily. In Jamtara, very recently, HWF has installed 30 hand pumps. In Lucknow, in slum areas where the hardship in fetching safe drinking water was as tough as it was there in Jamtara. Here too HWF has installed as many as 150 pumps. From the year 2009, the hand pumps and submersibles are being installed to ensure safe drinking water and it will continue till 2016.”
Anwar also urged other NGOs and government agencies and organisations to come forward and strengthen the approach of the HWF to accomplish the desired goals.
Mohd. Islam, from PRO Department of HWF, who recently visited some places to monitor and evaluate the functioning of the these installed hand pumps, informed Radiance that in some places where hand pumps were also installed by the government a couple of years ago but their condition is very bad and most of them are in no use. But on the contrary, the hand pumps installed by the HWF are still in good shape and providing safe drinking water 24/7. Now the time that was used to carry water has been utilised more effectively in shaping up the future of the children by their parents. This is a healthy sign.