The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Metro Water Board goes all out to deliver at the doorstep

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 21, 2006

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Metro Water Board goes all out to deliver at the doorstep

Special Correspondent

Unique community enterprise programme launched

Child and Police Project and Heritage Livelihood Services Provider are the partners Community free to manage distribution Water board's revenue too will go up Programme to be implemented in slums

HYDERABAD: Brand new water tanks, one each for two streets, a community enterprise comprising households that decides on individual timings and equitable distribution of drinking water among themselves and the Hyderabad Metro Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWSSB) reaching out to an area where it has never gone before.

Notwithstanding the searing heat, the dusty urban sprawl of Ambedkar Nagar in Jawahar Nagar gram panchayat of Shamirpet mandal in Ranga Reddy district, came alive on Friday with women dressed in their finery fetching water from community water tanks, showing that rare order. No fisticuffs, no frayed tempers and women even standing in a queue to get those pails of water!

Child and Police Project and Heritage Livelihood Services Provider (HLSP) in association with HMWSSB launched the `Suraksha Dhara' programme to ensure storage of water delivered by the water board and enable the community to manage its distribution. General Manager, Transmission Division, HMWSSB, K. Ravindranath, launched the programme.

Serving the poor

"The idea is to provide safe drinking water to the urban poor in areas where there is no network of piped supply," HLSP executive trustee Nalini Gangadharan said. The programme would be implemented in slums where laying of infrastructure is expensive, technically unfeasible or not on the immediate agenda of HMWSSB.

"Apart from providing clean drinking water to the urban poor, it will also generate revenue to the water board, indicating that people are ready to pay provided the service is good."

The immediate focus is on extending the programme to the entire 5,000 families of the Ambedkarnagar area, who were till now dependent on groundwater. With the Jawaharnagar area turning into a dumping yard for nearby municipalities, "we were suffering from unhygienic conditions and the groundwater was badly polluted," said Rajaiah, an attender in the Secretariat. "Residents complain of severe joint pains due to the polluted groundwater," Chandraiah, a rickshaw-puller complained, now elated at the prospect of having clean drinking water at his doorstep.

End of ordeal

For K. Samadhanam, who works in a software company in Himayatnagar, lugging a five-litre water can everyday from office to her home, changing three buses en route will no longer be necessary. "I'm happy the ordeal is over," she smiled.

While doubts about the implementation of the programme persist given the diverse population profile, the organisers are confident to pull it off taking everyone along. "We got safe drinking water. That is our biggest gain. There is no point fighting among ourselves," residents maintained.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Andhra Pradesh