Report: Integrated Drinking Water Project in village Lakh hamlet, Dist. Jalgaon, Maharashtra.

Providing potable drinking water to the Lakh Tanda (hamlet). We have implemented a water system to aid them in their water crisis.

- The excavation of the old well has been completed. The electric pump of 7.5 H.P. has been installed on the same well.
- The drinking water underground pipeline of 1,000 meters has been completed and the water is lifted from the well and transported through the underground new pipeline. It is being stored in the existing water storage tank of 15,000 ltrs capacity. The existing water storage tank has been repaired with plastering. .
- A new distribution system pipeline of 500 feet in length of 2.5 inch diameter has been replaced with new pipes with a view to avoid the water losses through the leakages and damages of the old pipeline. Two sulice valves have been installed to regular distribution of the water. Three new stand posts have been constructed.
- Two trainings have been conducted by RRC Dhule to build the capacities of the Water Committee and village community. The trgs on (1) Project Planning and Management included; importance of safe drinking water, water borne diseases, sanitation and health relationship, roles and responsibilities of the water committee, people, material purchases, accounting, monitoring and reporting etc. (2) The second trg, topics included; PPM-II, accounting, post-care and management of the project, revenue generation model, collection of water tax and repairs and maintenance, water purification, linkages with local government and other govt. schemes etc.

- The drinking water committee has been the main actor for the implementation of the activitiy and has been invovled right from the begnning ie planning , implementatin supervision and monitoring of the project. It has been successfully completed by the committee.

The social and technical support has been provided by the partner NGO ACE. The capacity building support, technical guidance and monitoring to the project has been provided by WOTR's regional office of Dhule

Impacts : Earlier there was shortage of safe and potable drinking water, especially in summer the women and girls had to tread 3-4 hrs per day to collect the water from far distances of 1.2 k.m. From Feb. onwards the water was provided through tankers and that too was not sufficient. Men used to fetch water in barrels and transport through bullock carts for household consumption and for livestock.

Now this picture has changed drastically after completion of the drinking water project. Every day water is released for ½ hour in the morning and people get the drinking water at the doorstep. Each household gets approx 250-300 liters of water per day, which is sufficient for the domestic purpose as well for livestock. The water storage tank is filled twice in a day. Earlier, due to the heavy leakage, the refilling of the water storage tank used to take 3-4 hours but now due to the new pipeline and new electric pump it takes only 45 mins to refill the existing water storage tank. This has reduced the electric consumption too.

The women's drudgery as well as the time in collecting water too has reduced, thus giving them some time for other and recreational work.

Now the efforts are being made to motivate the families to consturct the individual toilets through their own sources.

(i) The SHG promotion and Agriculture devp. through bank credit is being supported by NABARD.
(ii) Under this prg. two women's SHGs involving 30 women members and one men SHG have been formed. The internal lending is practiced to meet their credit needs for the domestic and consumption / agricultural.

In the pre-project phase the drinking water pipe scheme was promoted under the government scheme and was carried out through the contractor.
Since it was implemented under the government funds, the local people were not involved at all in the implementation process. The role of the government was service provider and the people's role was as receivers.
But during the implementation of this drinking water project, the implementation is being done by the villagers from planning to execution, supervision and monitoring. Therefore, the people are the architects and designers and their own project. The funds were released to the local water committee and they have purchased the qualitative material as per their choice. Therefore, the peoples stake in the project is higher. Since they have contributed 20% of the total cost in the form of labour and in cash they are the owners of the project.
Though the project is handed over to the GP (local governance council) for the administrative purpose, but the people are the real owners of the project. They have planned to collect additional contribution towards the repairs and maintenance. Thus the sustainability of the project is assured.

After receiving sanction from PWX, the Letter of Offer along with the sanctioned budget was sent to the Water Committee in Nov 2009. However, the physical work started in May 2010 by the people. The main reason was that people had migrated to the sugar factories and had returned in April 2010. Also the local political people have misguided the villagers about the project therefore the people were not willing to pay the initial people's contribution amount. This has delayed the implementation of the project.

Generally, the illiterate and nomadic community fall victim to the political people and have confidence in the elite leaders and false promises. Once the people are convinced and motivated they are committed to work very hard to complete the task.

ACE is the partner NGO of WOTR and Sampada Trust (a sister concern of WOTR for women’s empowerment and micro finance). The ACE is mainly involved in SHG promotion and linkages with bank for credit, national environmental awareness campaigns, national project on organic farming, capacity building of women and rural community, specially organizing trainings to elected women members of the Gram Panchayat (local self government) to build their capacities in village self governance.

At present the NGO has 14 staff members including 7 women staff.