End of water woes:Bala Vikasa's initiative brings cheers

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End of water woes:Bala Vikasa's initiative brings cheers to villagers

Times of India - May 17, 2011

Shiva Kumar Pinna

WARANGAL: Due to government's failure to provide safe drinking water, the rural poor are increasingly depending on voluntary organisations for supply of safe potable water in the districts.

In a unique initiative, Bala Vikasa social service society has established community-owned safe drinking water plants in several villages. More than 350 ROT (reverse osmosis technology) plants, established across the state, have been providing safe drinking water to the villagers. The rural poor, who used to consume polluted water from various water sources, are now happy with the supply of potable water.

While 20% of the expenditure on the maintenance of the plants is being met by collecting nominal fee from the consumers, the remaining 80% is borne by Bala Vikasa society. Under the community water project, each family gets 20 litres of water at Rs 2 only.

Shouri Reddy, administrator of Bala Vikasa, said in order to provide safe drinking water to the poor, they have adopted a five-stage filtration process that includes ROT. "We ensure removal of excessive fluoride content and harmful particles in water before supplying it to the villages," he said.

Already the rural poor in Guntur, Krishna, Kadapa, Kurnool and Prakasam districts have more than 30 community-owned projects working in full steam. A total of 137 plants across Warangal district, 80 at Karimnagar, 16 at Mahbubnagar and 24 at Nalgonda are presently supplying safe drinking water to the villages.

Bala Vikasa has also provided funds for digging up 120 borewells in Warangal, Prakasam, Guntur, Khammam, Kurnool, Mahbubnagar and Karimnagar districts. Sources said plans were afoot to dig 70 more borewells to provide safe drinking water to the rural poor in 40 villages.

Beera Lakshmaiah, a villager of Gangadevunipally, said the complaints of fluorosis have come down after they started consuming clean drinking water.

SOURCE:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indi ... 400804.cms