Report: Water & Sanitation & Beyond for 5 villages funded by KKS Benshiem

Initiated in July 2006 to provide piped water supply and sanitation facilities to remote and inaccessible tribal villages of Ganjam and Gajapati district villages covering a total of 550 Households.

The project was initiated in July 2006 to provide piped water supply and sanitation facilities as well as indoor lighting to families using solar power. The project is being implemented in several remote and inaccessible tribal villages of Ganjam and Gajapati district villages covering a total of 500+ households. The inhabitants in the operational areas belong almost exclusively to the tribal population or ‘scheduled tribes’.

Taking Water and sanitation as an entry point intervention in this project, efforts are made to address the problems faced by tribal community living in remote areas where infrastructure development has been minimal. Provision of piped water supply to homes relieve women from the drudgery of walking miles to collect water, thereby gaining time to engage themselves in social and other productive activities. The regular use of toilets and bathing rooms and getting protected piped water has a bearing on their expenditure on medicines at the household level and radically improves the health status of the community. Finally, the water supply and sanitary infrastructure that is established becomes a symbol of collective as well as individual pride in the village. Through this programme, Gram Vikas attempts to bridge the gap that exist in the present scheme and demonstrate, how way for socially inclusive, gender equitable, people friendly and financially viable model of sustainable and holistic development.

In Gira village, members from the village committee were trained in handling the solar pumping system operations and the maintenance mechanisms.
The technical team, who installed solar system, imparted training on operation and maintenance to the community. It has been planned to prepare a manual on SPV system for use by the people.

The communal violence in Orissa, post the killing of a Hindu priest in Kandhamal district has had its influence even in Gajapati district which has a considerable Christian population. Even the operational villages of Gram Vikas in Gajapati district, especially Koinpur and Anandpur project areas have been severely affected. The work has been hampered due to the violence prevailing in the villages and a sense of panic and fear prevailed for a considerable time. The untimely rain also inflicted significant damage to the already constructed TBRs in Pachidia and Galganda. The difficult geographical terrain imposed a major constraint for the staff as well as the people of these villages. The lack of fair weather roads made it very difficult for the communities to transport materials from the base to the village.

Finding suitable water source for pumping water has been difficult in Galaganda that led to delay in initiating work on water supply. We are exploring options to meet the water need by a combination of two technologies.

The community and staff have overcome all the challenges and constraints to install the solar powered pumping system in the villages. Technical knowledge of staff is essential to plan the design of the system rather than depending on external suppliers alone. Also equally important is to train community members in operations and maintenance.

We are also in the process of designing an operational manual on the SPV system specific to each village.Another major point of learning was the utilization of solar energy for providing a better life for the marginalized and underprivileged sections of the society through the electrification of rural homes, widening of income-generating activities besides water supply and sanitation.