For thousands of communities across India, the process of getting drinking water is now the same as the process of getting cash: they head to an ATM.
With 82 crore people who still do not have access to piped water and 70% of water in the country contaminated by pollutants, the government is increasingly starting to accept small water enterprises — such as water ATMs and community purification plants — as an alternative solution to the safe drinking water challenge.
A new report by Safe Water Network (SWN) says the government needs to spend ₹44,000 crore on 2.2 lakh small water enterprises to provide safe drinking water to about 37 crore people, mostly in urban slums where piped water infrastructure is difficult to build, and in rural areas with contaminated water sources.
A recent report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) pointed out that only 18% of the rural population has access to potable piped water, failing to meet the 2017 target of 50%.
“For those who can afford it, you buy a household RO (reverse osmosis system) to purify your water for drinking.
But for many people, that is not possible.
The community purification plants treat water locally.
The water ATM is a dispensation system, which can be automatic with a coin or smart card, or manual,” explained Poonam Sewak, vice presidentat the SWN.
“Essentially, it’s a community RO.” Community water purification plants have grown from less than 12,000 in 2014 to almost 50,000 in 2018, according to the SWN, as they have been incorporated into government planning.
SWN estimates that if the government is willing to spend less than 10% of that amount on small water enterprises, it could provide safe drinking water at a fraction of the cost.

By Sylvester Samba.
The SLPP led government of President Julius Maada Bio through the Ministry of Water Resources has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with China Geo Engineering Corporation (CGC) for the construction of the River Rokel Water Supply Facilities in the country.
The Minister of Water Resources, Dr. Jonathan Tengbe lamented that his Ministry is facing complex challenges that have profound implications on water deliverables throughout the country.
“These public water challenges are complex and interlinked district by district and can only be tackled by working together at all levels, individual, local, regional and national…These challenges call for new ways of working and for policy coherence built through engaging civil society, the private sector, households and individuals”, he noted.
Dr. Tengbe maintained that the project will be situated in the Port Loko district close to the bank of the Rokel River around the Rokel Village, adding that the site selection is based on the year-round water availability in the Role River.
“The timing is right…We must get hold of the opportunity to harness the momentum of water delivery to Freetown by 2022 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDG 6)”, he stressed.
In his statement, the Vice President, Dr. Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh said the expansion of water supply in Freetown and it immediate environs is part of President Bio’s election commitment.
He also said providing safe drinking water to the people of Sierra Leone is part of the New Direction Policy.
The Vice President added that access to safe drinking water is not only a challenge in Freetown, but in other parts of the country.
He maintained that he is expecting the project to respond to the needs of the people to provide safe and adequate drinking water.

The things people are complaining about, he said, are mostly due to the MRWA improving the water system.
DEP steps in, water authority must submit ‘corrective action plan’ The state DEP has been keeping a close watch over the MRWA since the events of January 2018 that Yost calls a “critical condition.” At that time, the system was experiencing water outages due to extremely low water supply and the water was not safe to drink, so MRWA issued a boil water advisory.
Under the agreement, MRWA must submit a “corrective action plan” to DEP by Dec. 24, 2018, which must include a “detailed schedule of actions that will be taken to correct the violations identified in the order.” Some of those violations include having unmetered service connections, 40 percent or more unaccounted water loss, an inadequate supply of water and failing water lines.
During the weeks of Oct. 15 and Oct. 22, MRWA was installing pressure reducing valves and meter pits in different locations within the water system.
Mountaintop residents: water is ‘not in any condition to drink’ Though MRWA is required by law to notify its customers before doing work on the system, Melanie Hockenberry said she never got such alerts.
Dana Tumbleson, who works for and is a resident of Snow Shoe Township, said he and his family “buy bottled water for our own sake.” They don’t allow their animals to drink the water from the system, instead opting to give them water from mountain springs in the area.
Tumbleson, too, said he knows the water authority is doing all it can to fix the leaks in the system and get the water level higher.
Authority acknowledges problems with communication The Mountaintop water authority alerts its customers of any work being done on the system through an emergency notification and alert system called SwiftReach, said Yost.
But sometimes, there is an emergency leak and no time to notify all the customers that work is being done, said Yost.
Not for it to be out for 2 days, dirty the days following, and still having to purchase water,” she wrote in an email.

Newark’s drinking water contains illegal levels of a group of carcinogenic contaminants and is in violation of a federal standard, the Star-Ledger reports.
State records cited by the outlet show that Newark’s water, which is consumed by at least 500,000 people, is contaminated with excess levels of haloacetic acids, which have been linked to bladder cancer in humans and liver cancer in animals.
This isn’t the first time Newark has faced a water problem: The state is already under scrutiny for elevated levels of lead in the drinking water supply, and the city was also issued violations for haloacetic acid levels between 2003 and 2005.
Newark’s deputy director of water and sewer utilities told NJ.com that the current acid levels are not an acute public-health emergency, and that the city is working to resolve the issue.
If there was an emergency, he said, the public would have been notified in early October, when the violation was first issued.
A senior scientist for Environmental Working Group disagreed with the decision to withhold this information from the public: “If I was a consumer, I would probably want to know as soon as possible,” she said.

The Ministry of Science and Technology has offered to give a hand to the provinces in terms of clean drinking water to their respective populations and assessment of water quality across Pakistan, as presently only 31 percent population has access to safe drinking water.
Pakistan is among the top countries, suffering from hepatitis and this is mainly due to polluted drinking water.
Timely remedy required to ensure provision of safe drinking water to citizens was the need of the hour in the face of so many fatal diseases-related to drinking water.
Pakistan’s dire need to come out from the polluted environment and live a healthy life.
Minister for Science and Technology Senator Muhammad Azam Swati alleged to the chief ministers of the four provinces and offered them cooperation in ‘effectively pooling and handling water resources’.
PCRWR offered a diverse range of research, advisory and consultancy services, including water quality monitoring and treatment, ground water investigation, real time flow measurement, using echo-sounds based telemetry systems, GIS mapping, tile drainage, water conservation and capacity building programmes.
The national level monitoring investigations carried out by the ministry’s body, the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources had revealed that only 31 per cent population of the country had access to clean drinking water.
This alarming situation of drinking water quality entails monitoring; careful selection of drinking water treatment technologies is the need of the hour for provision of safe drinking water to citizens.
PCRWR can support in assessing and understanding the water related challenges and advise on risks and mitigation measures.
For the provision of clean drinking water the CM’s cooperation is mandatory to keep an eye to facilitate the citizens with pure, healthy water for drinking so far, to keep away from the disasters.

And like other women staying at the slopes of this mountain, Nabukwasi walks a distance of about 4Km downhill to fetch water from this flowing stream for domestic use.
Dr Muhammad Mulongo, the District Health Officer for Bulambuli says surface water sources are often dirty and hazardous to drink.
Nabukwasi is among the eight million people in Uganda who do not have access to safe water and who do not have access to improved sanitation facilities, according to the 2015/16 report released by Water Aid, an international organisation.
Another report by water.org says 61 percent of Ugandans who lack access to safe water and 75 percent who do not have access to improved sanitation facilities.
A recent report from Twaweza’s Sauti za Wananchi survey says three out of four households access drinking water from an improved source and that eight out of 10 household’s harvest rainwater.
Like should you risk drinking water from the lake, which is free and easy to access, or spend time and money collecting water from an improved source that is further away?” the report adds.
Richard Cong, a commissioner at the Ministry of Water and environment says access to safe and clean water and basic sanitation is a right and one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the United Nations.
“Safe water is essential to sustain life and a satisfactory (adequate, safe and accessible) water supply must be available to all human beings, and the government is moving in the direction where every Ugandan will have access to safe and clean water,” said Eng Cong.
Mr Paul Mafabi, the director of environment affairs, Ministry of Water and Environment says water is a fundamental human need and that each person on earth requires at least 20 to 50 liters of clean, safe water a day for drinking, cooking, and simply keeping themselves clean.
He explained that polluted water form the mountains isn’t just dirty—it’s deadly and that many people die every year of diarrheal diseases like cholera, dysentery and many others are seriously sickened by a host of water-related ailments—many of which are easily preventable Mr Mafabi said the United Nations considers universal access to clean water a basic human right, and an essential step towards improving living standards.

Worse still, they now live in the epicentre of Zimbabwe’s deadliest cholera outbreak in a decade.
As of the 19 October, the current outbreak – one of several in Zimbabwe this year – had claimed at least 54 lives nationwide, with three quarters of the nearly 10,000 infections in densely populated Glen View and Budiriro.
According to health officials, the outbreak began in early September after two boreholes and a well used by Glen View and Budiriro residents for drinking water became contaminated by water from burst sewage pipes.
NGOs and private companies stepped in to provide tanks of water for the school, which needs to provide drinking water, toilets, and washing facilities for its 2,000 children.
Bjorn Nissen, MSF’s country director, told IRIN that boreholes drilled using new and improved techniques must be embraced as a solution until the city can provide clean and safe water in sufficient quantities to everyone.
In areas like Glen View and Budiriro, waste from burst sewage pipes easily flows into shallow wells, contaminating the water table.
Boreholes drilled in areas plagued by sewer leaks are often highly contaminated, particularly if the borehole is not deep enough.
“We have rehabilitated more than 70 boreholes in 13 suburbs in Harare.
So far, Malik said, there has been “zero contamination” in boreholes drilled using the new and improved technique, and MSF is in discussion with the City of Harare to roll it out more widely.
“What we need is fiscal commitment from both the local authorities and government towards WASH. We need a water budget.

ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Science and Technology has offered to assist the provinces in provision of safe drinking water to their respective populations and assessment of water quality across Pakistan, as presently only 31 percent population has access to safe drinking water.
Sources in the ministry told The News Thursday that Minister for Science and Technology Senator Muhammad Azam Swati wrote a letter to the chief ministers of the four provinces and offered them cooperation in ‘effectively pooling and handling water resources’.
Swati explained to the chief ministers that PCRWR offered a diverse range of research, advisory and consultancy services, including water quality monitoring and treatment, ground water investigation, real time flow measurement, using echo-sounds based telemetry systems, GIS mapping, tile drainage, water conservation and capacity building programmes.
The minister contended that timely remedy to ensure provision safe drinking water to citizens was the need of the hour in the face of so many fatal diseases-related to drinking water.
It is pertinent that a few months back, the Senate of Pakistan was informed that Pakistan is among the top countries, suffering from hepatitis and this is mainly due to polluted drinking water.
They said the minister, through the letter, informed the chief ministers that the national level monitoring investigations carried out by the ministry’s body: the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources; had revealed that only 31 per cent population of the country had access to clean drinking water.
These investigations, he noted, had identified the prevalence of bacteriological contamination, arsenic, nitrate and fluoride and these contamination had adverse effects on the quality of life due to water-related ailments like cholera, diarrhea, typhoid, hepatitis A and E, kidney diseases, skeletal and crippling fluorosis.
“This alarming situation of drinking water quality entails monitoring, careful selection of drinking water treatment technologies is the need of the hour for provision of safe drinking water to citizens.
PCRWR can support in assessing and understanding the water related challenges and advise on risks and mitigation measures,” they quoted the minister as telling the chief ministers.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has recently launched the Effective Water Sanitation and Hygiene Programme (E-Wash) in Nigeria.
The water and sanitation project will impact four states in the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
In Nigeria, 57 million people lack access to safe drinking water and sanitation services, according to the United Nations (UN).
It has therefore launched a project called the Effective Water, Sanitation and Hygiene programme (E-Wash).
Over the next four years, the programme will help to strengthen the governance, financial and technical sustainability of the entities responsible for water and sanitation management in each state concerned.
According to the organisation, in the various countries, more than 3.1 million people have benefited from sustainable access to safe drinking water, and more than 3 million have benefited from improved access to sanitation facilities.
These results concern in particular more than 500,000 women and girls, often poorly taken into account in their specific needs.
“By strengthening the capacity of these water boards to make concrete investment decisions, improving the efficiency of billing and collection and addressing their customers’ concerns, more people and businesses will ultimately have access to water and sanitation services,” said Benson Ajisegiri, Director of Water Supply at the Ministry of Water Resources.
USAID will invest more than 60 million dollars in the project.
Jean Marie Takouleu

WASHINGTON — Sen. Tim Kaine is pushing for federal protection for school drinking water on top of Virginia’s state-mandated protections for students.
Kaine joined 34 others in calling the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency to protect students from lead in drinking water.
Virginia students have had some level of protection from lead in drinking water since 2017, when Section 22.1-135.1, “Potable water; lead testing” was added to the code of Virginia, but Kaine and his colleagues want federal protection for Virginia students, as well as students in other states where there are no such state laws.
Though state law does require schools in Virginia must test for lead, there is currently no state agency assigned to receive testing results from the school districts, according to Dwayne Roadcap, director of the Office of Drinking Water at the Virginia Department of Health.
Many areas of the country currently don’t require lead testing of public schools’ water.
“A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report shows an estimated 41 percent of public school districts did not test for lead in school drinking water, and a third of districts that were tested showed elevated levels,” Kaine’s press release stated.
“Senator Kaine and his colleagues wrote this letter to urge the Department of Education and EPA to make improvements recommended by the GAO that would give states – including those like Virginia that require water testing – clearer guidance on the best practices for testing water and what actions to take if elevated levels of lead are discovered,” Sarah Peck, a Kaine spokeswoman states in an email.
According to Peck, among the improvements recommended in the GAO report are: The EPA give information to states and school districts about “schedules for testing school drinking water for lead, actions to take if lead is found in the drinking water and the costs of testing and remediation.” Make the Department of Education’s website more user-friendly to ensure states and school districts can better access key resources to address lead in water.
“Lead is a neurotoxin, and any amount of exposure in a child can slow growth and development, damage hearing and speech, and cause learning disabilities,” wrote the senators, according to the press release.
“If lessons are learned from water crises like the one in Flint, Michigan, the Federal Government should provide all states with that information so they can update their approach to lead testing and treatment and help prevent similar failures in the future,” Peck states.