Member Profile: Arghyam

Arghyam is a public charitable foundation setup with a personal endowment from Rohini Nilekani and working in the water sector since 2005. ‘Arghyam’ is a Sanskrit word meaning ‘Offering’.

Household Rainwater Harvesting
Focuses on installing RWH structures in 250 households in Bodhgaya district, Bihar to supplement the water requirements. The water levels are going down during summer months resulting in shortages. RWH is introduced in this area as one of the domestic water management options

"Water for All"- Holistic Water Management
Partnering with Development Alternative, Arghyam seeks to develop 10 villages in the Bundelkhand region (5 in U.P & 5 in M.P.) on a watershed basis focusing on improving the domestic water availability. Half of the funds required for the holistic development will be accessed from the Govt and communities.

Integrated Domestic Water Management
The project focuses on improving access to domestic water & sanitation facilities in three villages in Karnataka partnering with MYRADA. The salient features of the project are scientific estimation of withdrawal & planning the recharge structures accordingly, universalisation of sanitation & promoting ecosan units, piped water supply with metering to households, rooftop RWH as a supplementary source of domestic water and developing local systems for management including cost recovery.

RWH in Flood-prone Bihar
This is campaign led by Mr. Eklavya Prasad in North Bihar involving 4 local NGOs to popularize RWH as a solution for domestic water during flooding since people suffer due to lack of safe water during floods. The temporary shelters are used as catchments for collecting water. Demonstration units are set up at 80 places coupled with Jal Samvad Yatra

Revival of Traditional Water Harvesting- Sambhaav
Barmer, being a part of the Thar Desert, suffers from sandy loam soil, extreme climate (2oC - 49oC) and scanty, irregular annual rainfall averaging to 275 mm.

Heavy rainfall was received during the current season amounting to 723 mm of which 509 mm recorded over a period of 3 days resulted in severe floods.A large number of water harvesting structures were damaged or washed off because of the floods..

Arghyam supports Sambhaav in its effort in reviving & rebuilding TWHS involving the community. The programme adopts an approach based on indigenous science that has stood the test of time, thus restoring the faith of people in the traditional science of water harvesting. Through this programme, the spirit of sharing and working together towards a common need is encouraged which helps in building and developing the community

Arghyam seeks to support strategic and sustainable efforts in the water sector that address basic water needs for all citizens. We emphasize sustainability - environmental, financial, social and technical - as the key desirable outcomes in all projects we support.
We are working with several partners to manage the India Water Portal (www.indiawaterportal.org), which is an open, inclusive, web-based platform for sharing knowledge, information and data on the water sector in India. The objective of the Portal is to create a collaborative space for those interested in water and related issues like sanitation, water quality, wastewater management etc.

We have recently begun our work in the Urban Water Sector. The thrust of our urban initiative is to develop a Practical Framework for Integrated Urban Water Management (IUWM). IUWM approach takes into consideration the political, environmental, social, economic and technical components of water management.

We partner with the government and other institutions to scale up the reach of a project, while ensuring that the last-mile issues are addressed. Such partnerships, we believe, act as force multipliers. They provide learning opportunities and help in validating solution approaches.

The above efforts feed into and draw from our Research and Advocacy initiatives. Our advocacy initiative involves taking lessons from the field to the highest levels of policy formulation and decision - making. We support research into specific new technologies or approaches in the water and sanitation sector that have the potential to create significant impact.