Dean Forbes Photo Philanthropy visit to Miyani village

Imagine colorful fishing boats gently bobbing at anchor while tied to a pier that juts out into a calm blue sea. The sun is bright, the day peaceful. However, this is not a scene from a tourist-strewn seaside resort. This is Miyani, a poor fishing village on the Arabian seacoast of Gujurat state in India, where despite the location, no tourists venture. The coastal economy is based on fish and crops, some limestone quarries. In a rare example of encroachment of the modern world, wind generators dot the landscape.

Something else has encroached into the landscape but it’s a threat to health: salt water. Too much salt pollutes drinking water and can cause kidney stones. Too much salt results in declining agricultural productivity.

Gujurat has the longest coastline in India. The low elevation and limestone geology, combined with heavy use of groundwater for agriculture, domestic consumption and mining have resulted in salt water intrusion into the underground aquifers. According to the Coastal Salinity Prevention Cell, saline groundwater can be found 10-15 kilometers inland in places. The Ahmedabad-based NGO estimates that salinity impacts up to a fifth of Gujurat’s population- about 10 million people in 1,500 villages.

I visited coastal Gujurat for several days in November 2010 as a volunteer photographer for Blue Planet Network and Peer Water Exchange. My host was Ram Mahavadiya, a young researcher and field project coordinator with CSPC. One of the larger villages we visited was Miyani, located north of Porbander. CSPC and its partner NGOs, including the Aga Khan Rural Support Program and SAVA (Saurashtra Voluntary Action), had recently finished installing a pilot drinking water project in the village of 5,000 people.

The drinking water scheme is a reverse osmosis desalination plant, one of eight being piloted in villages and supported by General Electric and the Sir Ratan Tata Trust. When I visited the plant it had been turning out potable water for three months. A system to pipe the water to households was underway.

The key to success to bringing development projects of any kind to rural India is buy in by the people themselves. CSPC and SAVA spent 18 months in discussions with villagers, who formed committees that crossed gender and caste lines to help direct the projects. Villagers are trained to maintain and operate the equipment and oversee finances.

Before the NGOs stepped in to provide infrastructure changes in Miyani, villagers had to rely on water delivered by tanker trucks to provide drinking water.

“The water provided by the tankers was not good quality because it was mixed with dust and other things,” said Hansa, a female member Miyani’s water committee. Water produced by the reverse osmosis plant is cheaper, cleaner and tastes better, she said.

I asked Hansa what others difference having treated water has made. She said that within a month of people using it they had experienced fewer illnesses among their children.

The clean-water project has brought hope and made believers of the villagers that someone cared about their problems. Hansa said that the lack of potable water was a longstanding problem that the government seemed unable to solve. So when CSPC and SAVA officials first talked about making sweet water available, the villagers didn’t believe them, Hansa said.

“We are very happy that it is real,” she said.

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RO installation is working

Finally, RO plant construction of 5000 litres capacity per hour is complete.

Also, construction of 295 toilet units with 265 soak pit, 165 compost pit, 18 household level bio gas plants, 109 smokeless Chullahs and 1400 plantations is done.

Major expected outcome of the project are:
• Improved access to drinking and domestic water needs through provision of treated potable water.
• Substantial reduction in drudgery and time of women for fetching domestic water.
• 100% individual household toilet coverage as against merely average 15% coverage
• Promotion of improved hygiene and sanitation practices like appropriate hand washing practices, daily bathing practices, appropriate domestic waste disposal system and improvement in health and environmental conditions.

Refer the detailed village report attached.

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Reverse Osmosis equipment has arrived

Detailed individual village level drinking water plans, based on the technological parameters – water quality (salinity levels), well yields, water requirements – drinking & domestic etc. have been prepared and the RO plants have been commissioned in these villages.

Building is almost complete and will be painted after RO installation.

To make the project sustainable, comprehensive capacity building have been conducted to train and educate the village community to take over the responsibility of maintenance after completion of the project. 80% of the adults in the village were covered.

Baseline Study Report

Centre for Intergrated Development, Ahmedabad helped put together a project report on Tata-GE special drinking water supply and sanitation. The report updates the current condition related to water and sanitation in the villages. Major findings of the baseline study are:

a) Demographic details and household pattern
b) Livelihood pattern
c) Water scenario
d) Sanitation, waste management and other amenities
e) Personal hygiene and behavioral aspects
f) Health & Education condition.

Please refer the attached detailed study report.

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Baseline study launched

The project will cover 10 villages across Mangrol block of Junagadh district and Porbandar block of Porbandar district. A total of about 5000 households (app 25,000 beneficiaries) would be covered across 8 villages.

The major activities planned in each village are:
• o To improve the quality as well as quantity of drinking water, by establishing community managed RO based drinking water supply systems
o To promote self dependency among the community in matters pertaining to safe Water supply and environmental sanitation – both at the individual as well as community level;
o To promote Sanitation program in the villages
o Ensuring community participation
o To motivate village institutions (Panchayati Raj) for up-gradation and establishment of better standards of O & M of water supply scheme
o To enhance the capacities and technical skills of the communities to implement, manage, and sustain the community based water supply and village level sanitation systems

Major expected outcome of the project is to:
• improve access to drinking and domestic water needs through provision of treated potable water & substantial reduction in drudgery and time of women for fetching domestic water.
• Promote improved hygiene and sanitation practices

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