Case Study - 1: Safe Drinking Water Scheme

The habitation of Etimoga Pattapupalem is located in the most interior coastal region of Chinaganjam Mandal, Prakasam Distirct. The people of this village were putting all their efforts to fetch a pot of drinking water for their daily needs by going far away. But the water from that long distance, however, could not fit neither for domestic consumption or for drinking. It was visible in the village that water-born diseases were common and almost all the categories of population (50%) were affected with the consumption of polluted water.

The drinking water sources in the village were only two open wells. The wastewater was stagnating around the open well and again the same water penetrated into the well, contaminating it. Besides, after Tsunami there was no potable water in the community as the seawater polluted all the open wells. Together with ASSIST staff villagers have constructed a safe drinking water plant in the middle of the village. Kamakshamma, one villager says: “Now the situation has changed and we have plenty of purified water near the doorsteps. This has improved the health conditions of our families and we are able to save heavy investments on hospitals and loss of working days. We feel it is a god’s gift”. The villagers are collecting 100 Rs. from each family for bearing the recurring costs of this safe drinking water scheme such as maintenance charge of machinery, electrical charges, chemical charges and operator charges.

Case Study - 2: Provision of one open well:

The village of Rangaraopet, is located in Chirala Mandal, Prakasam district. The village consists of 60 families all belonging to Scheduled Caste. Nearly 40% of these families are living in huts and none possesses sanitary latrine. The drinking water sources in Rangaraopet village are five small open wells. Here, the open wells often get repairs and the water becomes polluted due to flooding of seawater. Wastewater is also stagnating around the open wells causing pollution of the same well when the water penetrates into it. People used to filter that polluted water and to use it for drinking purpose but were often getting ill. The wells were completely damaged forcing women and children to collect drinking water from far away. Because of this critical situation villagers started thinking to overcome the problem and organised meetings to identify the suitable solution to rectify this problem. In these meetings it was decided to dig a new open well at a suitable point accessible to all villagers. The Village Development Society prepared the estimation for the proposed open well along with platform and requested ASSIST to support the work. The well was completed with platform through the participation of the people, who provided labour.

Now the new open well is providing sufficient water for all the villagers.