Water is the essential link between health, nutrition, sanitation, and other basic needs of human life. In villages across India, availability of water and access to it are major problems, with many people dependent on water sources such as the village well, local ponds, or rivers which are often contaminated with chemical runoffs from fields and biological effluents from improper sanitation. Rural women and girls often have to walk 4-5 km to access water, which they then carry to their homes on their heads or shoulders for cooking and drinking. 

Having grown up in a coastal village in Kerala, our Chancellor Amma has experienced firsthand the acute shortage of water. On some days water was so scarce in the village that one needed to dig holes in the ground to collect water for the day. In those days, for 1000 houses there was one water pipe, and it did not work most of the time. In many regions, Amma has seen people walking long distances to fetch drinking water. Since she also has done so in the past, when Amma sees water waste, she knows the plight of water scarcity. Hence, since the very early days of its inception, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham along with the parent organization has worked on several initiatives to ensure a sustainable supply of water to the rural population of India. 

Less than 50 per cent of the population in India has access to safely managed drinking water. Moreover, two-thirds of India’s 718 districts are affected by extreme water depletion, and the rate of groundwater depletion in India is increasing at an alarming rate. It is estimated that waterborne diseases have an economic burden of approximately USD 600 million a year in India.

Thus, with the inception of the AmritaSeRVe village adoption project in 2013, the university began exploring ways to improve availability, access, and ensure the quality of this life-sustaining resource. Low-cost, energy-efficient technologies for water distribution were needed for rural areas, along with sustainable ways of water purification for drinking needs. The technology would also need to address the cultural values of rural people, compatible with local traditions and the involvement of community leaders and elders.

Jivamritam: Community-Based Solution for Clean Drinking Water

Many across rural India lack access to freshwater. They often depend on contaminated sources of water for their daily activities including consumption. This leads to water-borne diseases which particularly spikes during the monsoon season. Due to poor economic conditions and lack of access to safe water, the rural population often suffers in silence. Having experienced the difficulties due to lack of access to freshwater, our Chancellor launched the Jivamritam project in 2017 to put an end to the woes of the villagers.

Jointly launched by the President of India, Sri Ram Nath Kovind, the Jivamritam Community-Based Clean Drinking Water initiative aims to install drinking water filtration systems in 5,000 villages and provide clean drinking water to over 10 million people throughout India. The project utilizes a community cost-sharing approach for the operation and sustainable management of the systems. The systems are specially designed, low-cost water filters and are deployed in more than 250 communities across the country, enabling the sustained supply of drinking water to all. Ongoing research includes water quality and monitoring, water resource management, interventions to enhance community readiness to adopt technological solutions, and identifying socio-economic characteristics of affected populations in the context of water epidemiology.

Amrita Water Distribution System – Water Management In Rural India

For many villagers in India, collecting and carrying water is part of their daily routine. However, villagers often have to walk several kilometers to collect the water necessary for themselves and their families, sometimes walking several times a day. Many villagers, especially women, collect and carry between 200 and 500 liters of water per day for their families and cattle.

Recognizing the hardship of the villagers, our Chancellor encouraged the faculty, staff, and students to travel to villages in Rajasthan, Odisha, and Kerala to build water distribution systems for more effective water use and management. In the village of Harirampur, located in the Sawai Madhopur District of Rajasthan, water is now distributed to all 65 homes through a pipe system with an additional 5 taps conveniently placed in public areas. 

In Komalikudi, a tribal village in the Idukki District of Kerala, residents only had access to water seven months out of the year. What water they did consume and use was often contaminated due to run-off from their fields which carried a high concentration of chemical pesticides. Recognizing the need to address this challenge, the Amrita team decided to work with villagers to bring clean water to the settlement.

After considering the requirements of the village, the Amrita team designed a water distribution system that included a bore well with a pump and two overhead water tanks to supply water to the entire village via a network of pipes. The pipes were laid out throughout the village and water taps were installed for each cluster of houses and in various public spaces. All 90 homes, including the village’s community center, the Anganwadi (pre-school), and the multi-grade learning center now have access to water. 

Furthermore, with easy access to water, residents of all three villages can now conveniently use the newly built toilets provided for by AMMACHILabs. Also, AMMACHI Labs’ Sustainable Rural Sanitation Model and Training Program now empowers village women to build their own toilets, further encouraging the use of toilets in their own homes. From a safety standpoint, the combined initiatives in water and sanitation make young girls and women less vulnerable to physical attacks by miscreants.

With easy access to water, the overall hygiene of the villages will increase and the spread of infectious illnesses will be stemmed. Children will also be motivated to adopt proper hygiene habits, thereby improving their health and consequently increasing attendance at school.

Biocontrol of infection and smell for improved wastewater treatment and sanitation

Traditional, large and centralized effluent/sewage treatment plants are proving to be unsustainable from both economical and environmental perspectives, particularly with respect to the recent findings of the breeding and spreading of antimicrobial resistance in centralized treatment plants. This poses great health challenges to both urban and rural populations. 

As a part of the research initiatives to tackle the issues surrounding sanitation, Amrita School of Biotechnology was selected jointly by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, DBT, Government of India, and BIRAC to develop next-generation sanitation solutions in India that will use biological agents for disinfection. The “Reinvent the Toilet Grand Challenge: India” is a collaborative effort of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Ministry of Science and Technology, Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC); and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to fund Indian researchers to develop innovative, safe and affordable sanitation technologies.

Educational Kit for Women Empowerment in Sanitation

Through Amrita’s women empowerment initiatives, rural women are being trained to build their own toilets, thereby addressing the urgent need for sanitation infrastructure in rural communities. However, due to low literacy, it was identified that the women in Nani Borwai, Gujarat, are unable to learn about constructing toilets through traditional pedagogy. To bridge the gap and to effectively disseminate instructions and ensure comprehension of concepts, the team from Amrita identified the need to develop a deeper understanding of village life along with a customized educational model that will empower and encourage the women. 

The team conducted semi-structured interviews to understand social, cultural, economic, political, environmental, and technological factors and features in the village. As the team had decided to focus on women and work with them, they split the interested village women into three to four groups to help manage and assist in building their own toilets. This was also to help teach basic masonry skills to empower them both socially and financially. During the interactions with the village women, the team discussed how to avoid the risk of contamination from handling sludge while emptying the soak-pit. During the discussions, the team learned about the deep-rooted beliefs and considerations according to the regions.

As the team wanted to focus on how to adapt pedagogy according to the village, the target group, and village resources assets, they decided to use a combination of color codes, a down-sized model of the toilet via legos, and storyboarding activities. After this, the team and the women decided that every working day, the women would first watch a video tutorial explaining the task of the day and then attend a workshop. This would be followed by a practice session with the colorful lego bricks to ensure that the goal is well understood before actually executing the fieldwork.