India
Context
India is a huge and diverse country with a population of over one billion people, of which over 30% live in poverty. With a rapidly growing population and rural to urban migration increasing, there are vast numbers of people living without sanitation and water.
For every 1,000 children, 68 die before their fifth birthday, mainly from preventable diseases such as diarrhoea.
Only 15% of the rural population has access to a toilet.
In order to meet the Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of people without sanitation, access will need to be provided for 21 million people every year.
WaterAid's programme work in India
WaterAid has been working in India since 1986 and now works in ten states, providing access to water and sanitation in both rural and urban areas.
Our work has shifted from its traditional focus in Southern India to vulnerable northern communities, meaning that our presence is now national in scope.
WaterAid's main office is in New Delhi, meaning we are close to policy makers in the sector.
What has WaterAid achieved?
- Nearly 240,000 people gained access to safe water and sanitation in 2009/10 through WaterAid supported projects.
- The WaterAid project in Kalmandhai, Tiruchirapalli city was declared the country's first 100% sanitised slum in 2002. Khajapattai was recently announced as the seventh.
- WaterAid was instrumental in persuading the Indian government to incorporate low-cost latrines into their sanitation subsidies in 1999, after two years of advocacy work.
- Training manuals developed by WaterAid have been used by the government and major agencies throughout the country
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Credit: WaterAid /
Marco Betti |
Case study
Gauribai Oghare demonstrates how she washes her hands next to a waterpoint in Chhattisgarh, India.
"I am always interested in all the hygiene messages. Earlier myself and my family were living in very bad conditions. My children went to school very dirty, but after understanding the messages I started keeping my house clean, practising food hygiene and keeping my children clean.
I have seen the changes in myself and we are always happy. We always used to have diarrhoea and vomiting but we have not had anything for the last year.
Price Points
- £5 could pay for a mason to construct a family latrine
- £65 could pay for a hygiene promotional puppet show
- £390 could pay for a rainwater harvesting tank for a school of 100 students
- £780 could pay for a toolkit to maintain a village water point
Films/technology/other links
Harvesting the rain in India
Agents of change
Hygiene in India
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India Sources:
World Bank (2011) World Development Indicators database - databank.worldbank.org, WHO / UNICEF (2010) Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) report 2010, UNDP (2011), Human Development Report 2011 NB. Official statistics tend to understate the extent of water and sanitation problems, sometimes by a large factor. There are not sufficient resources available for accurate monitoring of either population or coverage. Varying definitions of water and sanitation coverage are used and national figures mask large regional differences in coverage. 
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What we do
320,000
