Building household toilets and bathing rooms (shower stalls) for each family in the village, followed by establishing water source, construction of overhead water tank, and laying pipes for running water to each kitchen, toilet & bathing room.
Narrative
The project began by building household toilets and bathing rooms (shower stalls) for each family in the village. Every village is required to raise on average a corpus fund of Rs. 1000 per family; of which the interest is used to extend the same facilities to new households as the village grows. This is then followed by establishing the water source, construction of an overhead water tank, and laying the pipes for running water to each kitchen, toilet and bathing room in the village. A lot of effort goes into motivating men, women and children to use and maintain the toilets appropriately. Good hygienic habits are taught: hand washing and nail cutting and maintaining the cleanliness of village surroundings. At the same time Gram Vikas builds the capacities of the village institution to manage their sanitation and water supply systems.
Gram Vikas leverages funds from the government to establish piped water supply in villages. The funds are made directly available to village committees who then implement the water supply project with technical assistance from Gram Vikas. However, recent changes in government policies have led to greater control of the funds and implementation by the departments, leading to unusual delays. Many villages have been waiting for nearly two years with little hope of change in government policy, and therefore unable to construct their water supply system. This project in collaboration with Charity:Water, Gram Vikas, was initiated in April 2008 to construct 14 overhead water tanks and the necessary distribution lines, in 14 remote villages across Orissa, where the toilets and bathing rooms have already been constructed and the kitchen taps have been installed.
