ACCESS TO SAFE DRINKING

WATER
 INDEX

Contents Page

Foreword
Author Profiles
List of Tables
List of Figures
Abbreviations
Abstract
1 Introduction
2 Defining the vulnerable population.
3 Water Governance Systems in India
Central Government.
States & Union Territories.
Non-Government Organizations.
4 Project Implementation
5 Drinking Water Purification Methods.
Physical Methods.
Chemical Methods.
Integrated Technology.
6 Sustainability of Technological and Other Interventions

Appropriateness of Technology Interventions.

7 ACKNOWLWDGEMETS
8 References
9 Conclusion
List of Tables

Table 1: Classification of drinking water sources as per the Joint Monitoring

Program
Table 2: Central Government Schemes/Programs for Drinking Water & WASH.
Table 3: Advantages and disadvantages of using physical methods of treating
drinking water.
Table 4: Chemical methods used to treat drinking water.
Table 5: Appropriateness of technological interventions for providing safe
drinking water
List of Figures

Fig 1: Diarrheal death rates in India and other similar country/region (1990-
2017).
Fig 2: Defining the vulnerable population.
Fig 3: Key players in drinking water governance in India.
Fig 4: Fecal contamination in drinking water sources in Indian S&UTS.
Fig 5: Prevalence of diarrhoea among US Children in S&UTS in India
Fig 6: Household drinking water treatment practices in Indian households.
Fig 7: Drinking water treatment technologies.
Fig 8: Solar Disinfection method.
Fig 9: Membrane technologies and removal of microbial contaminants.
Fig 10: Chlorination
Fig 11: Impact of improving WASH on the reduction in US children diarrhoea.
Fig 12: Ecosystem of support necessary for decentralized drinking water
management.
Fig 13: Design Thinking an iterative Process.
Fig 14: Sustainable access to safe Drinking water requires Design thinking.
Fig 15: Achieving SDG 6.1 (access to clean water & sanitation for all) is
dependent on all the other SDGS.
 ABBREVATIONS

BPL Below Poverty Line

C&SPCB Central and State Pollution Control Board
CSR Corporate Social Responsibility
CPCB Central Pollution Control Board
DALY Disability Adjusted Life Years
DDWS Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation
DWRRDGR Department of Water Resources, River
Development and Ganga Rejuvenation
DWSM District Water Sanitation Mission
DE Diatomaceous Earth
E. coli Escherichia coli
FHTC Functional Household Tap Connection
GPS Gram Panchayats
HWT Household Water Treatment
IEC Information, Education and Communication
JMP Joint Monitoring Program
JJM Jal Jeevan Mission
JUSCO Jamshedpur Utility Services Company Limited
KUWASIP Karnataka Urban Water Supply Improvement
Project
Mn Million
MoEF&CC Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Climate
Change
MF Microfiltration
NFHS National Family Health Survey
NWP National Water Policy
NMRC National Water Resources Council
NGO Non-Governmental Organization
NRDWP National Rural Drinking Water Program
ODF Open Defecation Free
OOPS Out of Pocket Spending
PRS Panchayat Raj Systems
PRIs Panchayati Raj Institutions
PPP Public Private Partnership
PET Polyethylene Terephthalate
RO Reverse Osmosis
S&UTs States and Union Territories
SPCB State Pollution Control Board
SWSM State Water and Sanitation Mission
SBA Swachh Bharat Abhiyan
SODIS Solar Disinfection
SDG Sustainable Development Goal
SRPP Sector Reform Pilot Projects
U5 Under five-year-old children
UN United Nations
UNICEF United Nations International Children's Emergency
Fund
UV Ultraviolet
USD United States Dollar
WASH Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
WHO World Health Organization
VWSC
ABSTRACT

Close to 0.3 million children under the age of five (US) die every year in India
just due to infectious diarrhoea. These children are mostly from socio-
economically vulnerable communities. Drinking water that is contaminated with
faecal pathogens and living in poor sanitation and hygiene (WASH) conditions
are the main causes of diarrhoea. Primordial preventive measures including
sustained access to microbially safe drinking water, proper use of toilets and
handwashing with soap can prevent these meaningless deaths.

Technological and other interventions by the public and private sectors to tackle
the WASH challenge have achieved commendable success in improving the
WASH situation in India over the last decade. Yet, half of India's population still
does not have access to safely managed drinking water, and around the same
number continues to defecate in the open. Improvement in the health outcomes
including reduction in diarrheal deaths among US children has not been
dramatic either.

This article presents a snapshot of the status of drinking water quality and the
prevalence of diarrhoea among US children in India. The appropriateness of
some of the commonly used drinking water disinfection technologies for the
vulnerable population has been assessed. While providing clean water through
concerted public and private interventions, the critical role of communities has
been emphasized. Fresh design thinking is seen as necessary to ensure
sustainability of efforts.
Providing access to safe drinking water and WASH environment to the masses in
India are no doubt complex, with multi-sectoral challenges. But, without
securing these there can be no sustainable development. Public Health systems
that are not built on the foundations of primordial prevention will continue to
remain fragile.
Keywords:
Safe drinking water, microbial contamination, under five-year-old children
diarrhoea, drinking water disinfection techniques, drinking water management,
Corporate Social Responsibility, Public Private Partnership

1. INTRODUCTION

Drinking water or potable water is a very valuable natural resource. Providing

access to safe drinking water for all is one
"Drinking water is the water intended
of the most complex contemporary issues for human consumption for drinking
to solve, especially in a country like India. and cooking purposes from any
It is riddled with technological, source. It includes water (treated or
environmental, and socio-politico- untreated) supplied by any means that
economic challenges. The logistics of is for human consumption". (BIS,
water supply to every household is also a 2012)
challenge. Freshwater, which is used for drinking purposes is disproportionately
low on earth when compared to the 97% that occurs as saline or sea water. Two
thirds of the freshwater remain frozen as glaciers and polar ice caps, leaving very
little for direct use as surface water (in ponds, rivers, lakes etc.) or ground water
(accessed through wells, bore wells etc.). Glaciers and rains replenish these
water sources. Water can also be sourced artificially through desalination of sea
water and condensation of atmospheric moisture. While the former is the
predominant source of drinking water in many Middle Eastern countries the air-
to-water technologies are still emerging.

Clean water is fundamental to human health and well-being. UN's Sustainable

Development Goal # 6.1 is to provide all households with safe quality and
adequate quantity of water by 2030 Equal and equitable access to safe and
affordable drinking water is part of that goal. The governments of countries
have the responsibility of providing access to safe drinking water to its
populations through Improved supplies. The Joint Monitoring Program (IMP) for
Water Supply and Sanitation of WHO and UNICEF tracks and monitors global
access to safe drinking water (Kostyla et al, 2015). For practical purposes of
monitoring, the JMP classifies drinking water supplies as improved water and
unimproved water (Table 1) (World Health Organization & UNICEF. 2017)

 Piped supplies into their dwellings, yard, or plot

 Public stand posts
 Boreholes/tube wells
Improved  Protected wells & springs
water sources  Improved water sources
 Rainwater
 Packaged water including bottled water and Sacher
water.
 Delivered water, including tanker trucks and small carts
Unimproved  No-Piped supplies-unprotected wells and springs.
water sources  Surface water (rivers, lakes, ponds, stream, irrigation
channel

Table 1: Classification of Drinking Water sources as per the joint Monitoring Program

Nearly half the world's population is projected to live in extremely water-stressed

regions by 2026. Globally. -30% (785 million) of the people already lack access to
drinking water (CDC, 2021) and every ochre Indian does not have access to safe
drinking water. Inadequate quantities and poor quality of drinking water make
people exposed to a variety of preventable illnesses and they remain trapped in
morbidity and increased DALY (disability adjusted life years) (World Health
Organization, 2019), In 2017, 1.6 million people worldwide died of diarrhoea, of
which >0.5 million were US children (Dadonaiteet al., 2019). Incessant diarrhoea
also impacts the nutrition and growth of children, especially those Iving in socio-
economically compromised environments (Mokomane et al, 2018). Microbial
contamination of drinking water is closely related to poor water, sanitation, and
hygiene (WASH), and influenced by the knowledge, attitude, and practices (KAP)
of individuals and communities (Kuberan et al, 2015).

Safe drinking water is simply defined by WHO as "water that does not represent
any significant risk to health over a lifetime of consumption, including different
sensitivities that may occur between life stages" (WHO, 2006). Water becomes
Uri safe for consumption when it gets polluted with physical, chemical, biological,
or radiological contaminants. Of these, microbial contamination is by far the
major concern, especially in low-and-middle income countries like India. (MDGs,
2012) Pathogens such as bacteria, viruses, protozoa, cyanobacteria and helminths
are examples of biological contaminants (Sharma & Bhattacharya, 2017). Diseases
caused by microbial contamination include diarrhoea, cholera, typhoid,
dysentery, hepatitis A and E, poliomyelitis etc. (Sharma & Bhattacharya, 2017).
Worldwide, infectious diarrhoea caused by bacteria and viruses is a leading cause
of mortality of children under the age of five (Francis et al., 2015) Diarrheagenic
pathogens such as Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhi, Shigella flex Neri, Vibrio
cholerae and Rotavirus spread through water and food contaminated with human
or animal faeces.

Mixing of sewage with water bodies and Safely managed drinking water is
pipelines, open defecation, unsafe defined as "drinking water from an
disposal of human and animal wastes, Improved water source that is
poor water handling practices etc. are located on-premises, available
routes of drinking water contamination. when needed and free from faecal
According to WHO, microbially safe water and priority chemical
is that with no detectable & coli (an contamination" (World Health
indicator of faecal contamination) in 100 Organization & UNICEF, 2017).
ml of sample (WHO, 2017). Disinfection/removal pathogens are ways of making it
safe to drink. Avoiding the contamination in the first place would however be a
more sustainable way of providing microbially safe water. This requires
structuring the country's growth and development on the fundamentals of
primordial prevention including planning and monitoring for WASH in terms of
structures, systems, and behaviours. Under the current scenario in India,
purification is one of the ways to provide microbially safe drinking water. There
are several techniques to disinfect/remove pathogens from drinking water
including physical, chemical, biological or a combination of these. Disinfection can
be performed at a centralized, community level facility at the water source, or at
the household level, or both.

In India, drinking water comes under the control of the State and Union Territories
(S&UTS). S&UTS get schematic and financial support from the Central Ministry of
Drinking Water and Sanitation (now called the Ministry of Jal Shakti). The
Government of India has launched several schemes that are being implemented
by the S&UTs to enhance the quality of drinking water, such as the Jal Jeevan
Mission (to provide piped water to all rural households) and Swachh Bharat
Mission (to provide toilets and stop open defecation). The Central and State
Pollution Control Boards (C&S PCB) monitor India's primary drinking water
sources, namely the surface and ground water sources (CPCB, 2020) Healthcare,
which is closely related to safe drinking water, is also a matter of the state
governments.

Several cost-effective techniques and innovations have been brought about in

India to provide safe drinking water to the masses. Awareness among the public
and the mission mode of operation to improve water, sanitation, and hygiene by
the local, state, and central governments in India have helped improve the access
to safe drinking water to a large extent. Over 100 million toilets were constructed
and all villages in India were declared as open defecation free (ODF) by the
Swachh Bharat Mission - Grameen (Rural) in 2019 on the 150th birth anniversary
of Mahatma Gandhi (Ministry of Jal shakti, 2020), Yet, the recently published
Phase 1 of the National Family Health Survey - 5 (NFHS-5) for 22 S&UTs in 2020,
shows that the meaningless deaths due to US children diarrhoea continue
unabated in India, reflecting gaps in addressing factors other than toilet
construction.
India managed to reduce the diarrheal death rate from 193/100000 in 1999 to
86/100000 in 2017, which is no doubt quite a feat, but not adequate in
comparison to other similar income or lower income countries (Fig 1). This
indicates that there is a need to identify the critical gaps and implement
appropriate and sustainable programs to address them. Diarrhoea prevalence
and deaths among the US children are important health outcomes not only to
measure the impact of WASH interventions but also the overall performance of a
country in health aspects.

Fig 1: Diarrheal death rates in India and other similar income country/region (1990-2017)
Source: IHME, Global Burden of Disease (GBD)

The article reviews the status of microbial contamination of drinking water

across the S&UTs of India and the prevalence of US children diarrhoea, It
assesses the appropriateness of existing drinking water disinfection techniques,
for the eco-socio-economically vulnerable population. The article introduces key
players in drinking water governance in India to better understand the
operational contexts. It contends that India's development strategies need to be
reformed to include primordial prevention approaches such as better WASH
conditions, especially for the vulnerable population. The governance and
regulatory systems to monitor and control pollution of water sources should be
tightened. If not, achieving the goals of providing access to safe drinking water
and health and wellbeing for all will remain a distant dream.

2. Defining the vulnerable population

Lack of access to safe drinking water and good WASH conditions particularly
plague certain segments of India's population, because of the
social/economic/environmental/political contexts they live in (Paul, 2020). The
children who die of diarrhoea in India are likely to be from the 260 Mn people
living below the poverty line (BPL), 450 Mn migrant laborers, 1.2 Mn tribal
population, 889 Mn living in rural villages, 5 Mn of the internally displaced
people, and 65 Mn slum dwellers, Illiteracy among-311 Mn people would also
affect the WASH awareness and behaviour (Fig 2). Any technological and other
interventions to provide access to safe drinking water would therefore need to
be appropriate to these contexts, to be sustainable. At the same time, the
technologies would also need to consider the long-term impact on the
environment, including the water sources themselves: Technologies that purify
drinking water but pollute the environment are not sustainable in the long run.
3. Water Governance Systems in India

The first National Water Policy (NWPJ established by the Government of India in
September 1987 by the National Water Resources Council (NWRC), indicates the
national level commitment to the importance of water and water utilization, it
specifically mentions that water resource development should be taken up as
multi-sectoral projects, giving top priority to drinking water, In NWP (2002)
there was a commitment to providing access to safe drinking water facilities to
the entire population (rural and urban), and that this should not be affected
because of use by the agriculture and industrial sectors: NWP (2012) was
enacted to address the growing disparities in not only the access to quality and
quantum of drinking water, but also to access of water for sanitation. The need
for efforts in conservation and better management of water were particularly
highlighted in the 2012 policy.
India has a federal system of governance where water (including drinking water
and other supplies, Irrigation & canals, drainage and embankments, storage, and
power) is a subject matter of the 28 States and 8 Union Territories (S&UTs),
under Article 246 of the Constitution of India. However, the Central Government
has an overall responsibility for appropriate functioning of water related
activities. A third player in the drinking water sector is the non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) Including the civil society organizations, academia,
research institutions, private industry, and the corporate social responsibility
(CSR) units of private organizations (Fig 3)

The supply and management of water in the rural and urban areas are managed
differently in India the Municipalities Corporations that come under the
respective S&UTs are responsible for the urban water supply and management
while a unique system called the Panchayati Raj System (PRS) manages the rural
areas. The PRS is a 3-tier system with elected representatives at the District,
Taluk (Block) and Gram (Vila gird level participation in governance and
administration (Ahmed & Araral, 2019).
3.1 Central Government

The Ministry of Water Resources, River Development, and Ganga Rejuvenation

was renamed as the Ministry of Jal Shakti on June 14, 2019, with two
departments. The Department of Water Resources, River Development, and
Ganga Rejuvenation (DWRRDGR) and the Department of Drinking Water and
Sanitation (DDWS) (Ministry of Jal shakti, 2021). The departments oversee
regulation of the country's water resources, as well as establish policy guidelines
and schemes. The central ministry's main functions are overall planning, policy
development, collaboration, and guidance in the water resources sector, setting
up of utilizable resources and formulation of policies for optimal usage.
supervision of and assistance to state level activities in ground water
development and general organizational technological, and scientific planning
for development (Ministry of jal shakti, 2017) also frames schemes and funds
the S&UTs for better water management and facilitates interstate consultations
to resolve disputes on water.
3.2 States & Union Territories

The S&UTs are responsible for water supply related operations, irrigation,
funding water resource projects, and cost recovery from these projects. The
central government does offer financial aid to state governments for the
purpose of conducting and implementing national-level initiatives and other
federally aided programs. However, the state must maintain and grow its water
supplies primarily through its own funds. Most states manage their water
supplies based on physical/administrative boundaries rather than hydro-
geological ones (Bhatt & Bhatt, 2017).

Since 1999, a new form of community management with government funding

was developed. The Indian government started the process of incorporating
community management into its national strategy by launching sector reform
pilot projects (SRPP) in 67 districts across 26-states (Hutchings et al, 2017). The
Panchayati Raj Institutions including the Gram Panchayats (GPs) and the village
water and sanitation committees (VWSCs) mobilize community participation (Fig
3). District and state level organizations who have well-trained personnel, in
turn guide and train the drinking water committee members of the Pris.

The State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs) monitor the drinking water quality
from the supply sources on a regular basis, While the SPCBs of some states like
Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Kerala perform better in testing and sharing data
online, a few others are lagging. However overall, the coverage of water testing
and data sharing, particularly on the microbial quality is not real-time across the
country. Since the impact of poor drinking water quality immediately affects
health, the routine testing and monitoring of drinking water to be a routine
feature of all SPCBs daily.
3.3 Non-Government Organizations

Civil society organizations, trusts, academic and research institutions, private

industries, and their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) arms are the third
kind of players who are involved in the drinking water services (Fig 3). They
contribute to either directly or indirectly providing products or services for
drinking water. Large trusts like the TATA Water Mission works with the state
and central governments and undertake advocacy, communication, installation
of purifiers and promote innovative projects for safe drinking water (Tata Trusts,
2021).

Private enterprises or individual can also finance and own a venture completely,
that is fully responsible for all water related services. They charge a price that
customers are willing to pay. Private businesses may streamline operations by
establishing consistent ownership and control over activities, resulting in cost-
effective services that can be maintained by revenue. Most are referred to as
social entrepreneurs because they have a stated objective that is obviously
beyond a profit motive Nand Community Water Services, Health point Services,
Carvajal, Water life, and Spring Health are all notable examples
(Bandyopadhyay, 2016).

In recent times. Community managed systems have been experimented in India,

wherein the communities have been engaged especially in managing drinking
water purification plants Government/ NGOs provide capital support, the
community invests a part of it and the technology partner assists with device
setup and training the community-based enterprise group in operations and
maintenance of the plant. The recurring costs are recovered as small customer
charges. This model is used by NGOs, many of which are funded by Corporate
Social Responsibility (CSR). As per Section VII of the Company Act, the central
government has mandated all companies to dedicate CSR funds for societal
programs including clean water, sanitation, and hygiene initiatives
(Bandyopadhyay. 2016).
Public-Private Partnership (PPP) is essential for outreach and sustaining
technology interventions for safe drinking water at the ground level if
governments are unable to deliver in a timely and quality manner. Given the
government's financial constraints and the private sector's increased
productivity. public-private partnership has emerged as one of the trending
ways for the government to improve the infrastructure (H. Li et al., 2019).
Almost every aspect of India's economy has changed because of economic
reforms, privatization, and globalization. Multi-national as well as national
corporates are bidding for taking charge of water supply services. Although this
way of operation started in 1991 in sectors such as power, it has recently
extended to include the water sector, amid severe protests from civil society
organizations. The protests are valid considering that right to water is a basic
human right, that cannot be denied if unable to pay. Privatization of water can
mean the exchange of ownership from the government to a private sector, for
profit companies (Bhattacharya & Banerjee, 2015), PPP which is sometimes
viewed as a means of achieving sustainability goals, can be counter-productive it
solely profits driven. The objectives of senang people and conserving the natural
resources need to be stated explicitly in the agreements between the
government and the private parties. Penalty for wolation, and closure clauses
are also important to be put in place. Unless the governments are on their toes
with appropriate and robust monitoring and regulatory mechanisms, the PPP
model can go horribly wrong over time. The PPP water supply model used by
three Karnataka cities-Belgaum, Gulbarga, and Hubli-Dharwad-has prompted
water delivery reforms in other Karnataka towns as well as Nagpur,
Maharashtra. in the PPP project, the Karnataka Urban Water Supply
Improvement Project (KUWASIP) was seen as an opportunity to explore and
learn, Another company called Veolia has formed a joint venture with JUSCO la
Tata company subsidiary) and operates in Nagpur, Maharashtra (The World
Bank, 2014). Other than the PPP model with large private players, there are In
numerous enterprises who own licensed drinking water purification and
packaging facilities that distribute drinking water through their own supply
chain systems. There are also small players who distribute water to the last mile
customers through tankers.
4. Project Implementation
5. Drinking Water Purification Methods

Drinking water treatment technologies focus on removal of physical (e.g.,

turbidity, suspended particles etc.) chemical (e.g., arsenic, iron, fluoride etc),
and biological (bacteria, virus, protozoans. helminths etc.) contaminants. The
focus in this section is mainly on the commonly methods/technologies used in
India for the removal and/or killing of microbial pathogens from drinking water,
and their appropriateness for the vulnerable population. The reasons for this
focus are that unlike physical or chemical contaminants, Marriott pathogens in
drinking water multiply and spread rapidly, killing 6000 US children every day
globally through diarrheal diseases. Cholera for e.g., can take away a child's life
in a few hours if not treated immediately, Simple technology and other
Interventions that provide microbially safe drinking water can thus have a huge
public health impact (UNICEF, 2010).

Diarrhoea and drinking water contamination with pathogens burden the socio-
economically vulnerable populations more than those well-off, and therefore
any water treatment/intervention promoted should be simple, easy to use,
intuitive, and affordable. While being effective, they should be safe and
sustainable. Dependence on external resources should be minimal, instead local
resources should be used as far as possible it is extremely difficult to identify
technologies that meet all the required criteria and therefore one or more
appropriate technologies are being integrated. However, academic, and
industrial organizations are constantly innovating to simplify existing
technologies and in making them appropriate for the largest population (DOWS,
2013).
Treatment technologies can be classified based on the methods used as Physical,
Chemical, and Integrated (Fig 7).
5.1 Physical Methods
Physical methods use heat to kill or material to filter the microbial contaminants from drinking
water.

5.1.1 Bolling

Boiling has been one of the most common and oldest methods of disinfecting household water
for drinking and cooking purposes. Most water borne pathogens are killed by bringing the water
to a roll bill for at least 1 moon, even though most are killed at lower temperatures (e.g. 70 °C)
(Trösch, 2009) Thus, Bolling is a simple and effective treatment method, especially as a household
method (DOWS 2013) However, the time and cost of heating, taste changes, recontamination due
to bad handling and scaling up are some of the limitations.
Distillation Systems

The most common separation technique is distillation. The mixed components in water are
separated using heat (Sharma & Bhattacharya, 201711, which is a method of heating water so
the point of boiling and then collecting the water vapor as it condenses, leaving behind several
pollutants. This method is extremely effective against pathogens like protozoa, bacteria and
viruses, as well as the most common chemical pollutants like arsenic, Bamum, lead, nitrate, and
a wide range of organic chemicals (CDC, 2009) However, the cost of heating and the loss of
minerals are the main limitations, particularly when scaling up.

Solar Disinfection

Most pathogens are destroyed by ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun and increasing the
temperature of the water increases the effectiveness of the radiation (Trösch, 2009). Solar energy
is the most abundant renewable energy source on earth, and it also happens to be the most
abundant in areas that require clean water. Le the developing countries. The method, which is
based on radiation intensity, temperature, water muddiness, and water height, is simple and
inexpensive. It involves exposing water in clear plastic bottles (usually synthetic resin
terephthalate, PET) to the sun for at least six hours (Fig 8). (Pichel et al., 2019) There are no
recurring expenses. SODIS and Solvatten are two well-established products using solar
disinfection. They reduce faecal contaminant load and prevent diarrhoea among children
(Solvatten, 2021). The limitations of SODIS are the small volumes of purification, incomplete
disinfection on cloudy days, recontamination and leaching from the PET bottles. Supply of spare
parts and the product itself is an issue with Solvatten.
6. Sustainability of Technological and Other Interventions

Despite several technological and other interventions, providing access to safe drinking water to
all in India and preventing US children continue to be huge challenges for India Shortfall in
appropriateness of the interventions to the end user/target population is one of the main reasons
for the failure to create the desired health outcome. For any technology to be sustainable, it must
be appropriate not only to the target population but also to the environment in the long run.

6.1 Appropriateness of Technology Interventions

Technologies have contributed immensely to alleviation of human suffering and drudgery; they
have become a part and parcel of our lives. This dependency will only increase in the coming
decades. The appropriateness of some of the drinking water disinfection technologies/methods
for the vulnerable/ target population (Section #2) has been assessed (Table 5)

The appropriateness of technologies was assessed on a 0-5 scale to capture their effectiveness,
safety, risk of recontamination, Investment costs, maintenance costs, scalability, and
sustainability (social economic, and environmental. E.g., technologies like the integrated RO
system will gain a high score (4/5i for efficacy but score low on socio-economic environmental
viability for the target population and therefore unlikely to sustain RO systems aisle operate on
electricity, require heavy investments and maintenance, and a lot of fresh water to generate clean
water (Emillion, 2020).

7. Discussion

There are no easy solutions to providing access to clean drinking water to all in India and achieving
related health benefits like reduction in dunes among US year old children. Especially when the
target population is already vulnerable facing socio-economic-environmental challenges. A
whole-of society approach involving changes in the KAP of governments, industries as well as the
public would be required Investments in behaviour change strategies can sustainably benefit the
health and economic outcomes for India (Townsend & Curtis, 2017). Technologies to purify
drinking water can provide quick fix relief of the curative kind. Even these need to be tested for
the appropriateness for the target population and the environment. A sustainable solution for
clean drinking water would require a clean environment (including WASHL and equitable and
mindful water usage. Fresh water availability is finite on earth and must be conserved.
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CONCLUSION

In conclusion, access to safe drinking water is not only a basic human right but a
fundamental prerequisite for health, development, and overall societal well-being.
While significant progress has been made, challenges persist, particularly in regions
facing economic hardships and environmental stress. The global community must
continue to work together to address disparities, invest in sustainable
infrastructure, and leverage technological innovations. Moreover, community
engagement and empowerment play a crucial role in ensuring the long-term
success of water initiatives.

As we move forward, it is imperative to view access to safe drinking water as a

shared responsibility that transcends borders. By prioritizing this essential resource,
we contribute not only to improved public health but also to the creation of more
resilient and sustainable communities. The journey towards universal access to safe
drinking water requires continued commitment, collaboration, and a holistic
approach that considers the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of
water management. In doing so, we pave the way for a healthier, more equitable,
and sustainable future for all.