Self-supporting community- based mitigation program that provides arsenic safe water using modified dugwells along with public education on water related health effects.

2007-01-01

2007-12-31

14308

17059

34

For 20 dugwells USD 680

567

Out of 24 dugwells register record shows: Total consumers=567; Male=299, Female=268; Student=106 and Children <5=21. In June 2008 the total number of families is 215 and beneficiaries is 1038 using 21 dugwells. The registers are being appended.

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0

727

Seven employees and more than 720 persons received knowledge on the benefits of drinking arsenic safe water and treated dugwell water. They were also shown slides and given lectures on practice of proper personal hygiene to prevent themselves from diseases caused by water borne and food borne bacteria.

(a) Four more dugwells were contructed that were pending from the fund (US$5126) received in 2006 and 2007 from Groupe Mosaique of Quebec, Canada and Kallol Club of New jersey. (b) The two field workers from Gaighata were involved from May 2007 and will be engaged until April 2008.

1st week Jan: Two meetings were held at the end of last year at the Block Development Office of Gaighata with the BDO officer in charge, Medical Officer in charge, Dr. Mondol, and some Panchayet Pradhans that went well. They have assured their cooperation in the arsenic prone panchayets of their block. They would guide and assist in choosing the sites. There are some Womens' Cooperative of 'Milk producers', who according to the Karmadakshya, (the officer in charge) could form CBGs. In January two person from the Gaighata Block are being recruited for training starting with how to select the sites for dugwells by organizing meetings in the areas with the prospective users educating the users about use of dugwell water compared with arsenic contaminated tube well water and responsibility to be taken up by the CBGs on maintenance of the dugwells etc. The next step would be assigning the identity number of the dugwell sites and recording the geocodes of the location, testing nearby tubewells to confirm presence of arsenic followed by recording names, age, and profession of the users in registers. Jan 18th: So far 11 prospective sites have been selected through the office of the Block Development and the Panchayets. More to be seen by next week. By the end of February all 20 sites are planned to be finalized by the experts though the construction will be not until in April. Between February and April village meetings will be held where numerous villagers will be benefitting the knowledge of impact of arsenic contaminated water and arsenic safe water. September 14, 2007: Construction of 20+4 dugwells were completed in June just before the onset of monsoon. There was a delay of one week due to non-availability of coarse sand. Sand is in high demand due to increase in construction work in the outskirts of the city of Kolkata. Followed by the excavation the masonry (housing) job was completed. All the indicator boards are up now. The arsenic analysis of all the dugwells are done in the end of August. As soon as all the reports are put together they will be available. Due to heavy rainfall even in the ‘Bhadro’ month, the month generally has a break of rain during the monsoon period; the water in the newly constructed dugwells is pretty turbid. People are eager to start using the dugwells but due to high turbidity they cannot. They are advised to use only for cooking. The disinfectant is being administered to control development of any bacteria and people are advised to pump the water as much as possible. So far to hand over the dugwells to community based groups, only three CBG meetings have been held in the presence of Dr. Mondol, the public health officer of the Gaighata BDO (block development office). Others will be held as soon as people are able to start using the dugwell water. The map with the location of the dugwells can be seen on the project well website. Pictures will be taken, next week, with a borrowed digital camera and report will be put up as soon as they are recieved. December 3: The pictures of the newly constructed dugwells are available on the website that also include data on location (geocodes), property donor, results of water analysis (some are pending) and the number of users. The number of consumers will increase gradually through health meetings in the areas where there is lack of information on effects of arsenic-safe-chlorinated-water. Construction of all the 20+4 dugwells were constructed well except one. There is a crack on the housing portion of PW65/RMN1 at Pipley Dakshin Para of Ramnagar Panchayat after the monsoon rain which is speculated to be due to an unknown cowdung pit or Khatal at the site because the color of the water is yellow and also has a foul smell. There was no information about this pit from the local people during the site selection. This dugwell is under-observation and being treated with lime and alum and will be tested for chemicals that may be present in the water. Apart from technical fault of PW65 heads of 2 tubewell pumps are broken due to overpumping that are being replaced. At some sites PVC pipes are being installed to drain the run offs to avoid accumulation of stagnant water close to the dugwell. These viallges are in the remote areas where the nearest bus road is more than 10 km away. Installation of piped water is just a dream for those who live in these areas. In the area where 40 dugwells are existing (PWSET1) 38 health meetings, 'sashtho sawbha', have been completed since mid-November 2006. This is the first round where the audio Visual aids are being used. The VCD, (#PW1) containing information of the dugwell program and why is it necessary to chlorinate the water with information on bacteria and its harmful effects are discussed. Practice of proper personal hygiene is also discussed. In the next round of health meetings a different topic will be selected.

Before construction of every dugwell an additional narrow hole will be dug to get the lithological log of the depth of layers of clay and sand. This will enable to assess the possible depth of the dugwell and how many small and big rings will be needed and hopefully can detect historical cowdung pit and avoid the site.