Dear all,
Greetings from HAMARI VARUNA ABHIYAN (Save the Varuna moovement) , Varanasi(India). Varuna is the famous river of Varanasi.World’s oldest and holy city Varanasi was named on this holy river. In hindu mythology and history we have got the reference of river Varuna. Varuna starts from melhum at phulpur in Allahabad District. It flows from Bhadohi ,Mirzapur ,Jounpur, enters in varanasi, and ends in river ganga at sarai mohana. Its total length is about106 kms.
Varanasi is also an ancient name, found in both the Buddhist Jataka tales and in the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata. From the pali version of this name –baranasi- comes the corrupted name Banaras, by which the city is most widely known today. Varanasi sits between the Varana river ,which flows into the ganges on the north and the Asi river, which joins the Ganges on the south . Varanasi stretches along the river between the two. According to the Padma Puran ‘The Varana and the Asi are two rivers, set there by Gods. Between them is a holy land and there is none more excellent on earth.”
Since 1980, Varuna was recognized as lifeline of Varanasi. It’s water was very medicated and its river bank were famous for medicated plants like Brahmi, punarnava, sarpgandha,juri, sankhpuspi, satavar and ghritkumari. It maintained the water level of varanasi, which is now a days at 3rd strata. The farmers of this area used its water for drinking, irrigation and cattle. But now, the total scenario has changed, Varuna has became the most polluted river of India, there is no any living things even parasites also in it. Varuna is ailing and becoming a garbage tank. the impact of all these things are shown. Due to these, the ground water level is going at downiest level. Pollution is being high and a holy lifeline river is dying.
Save the Varuna movement (Hamari Varuna Abhiyan) is a joint effort of some Civil Societies, who are involve in social activities in Varanasi and nearby aras . prayash Foundation Trust, Centre for Social Development society & Hamari Varuna Samiti are playing the major roles in this movement. Except then, many other VOs, NGOs and institutions like Water Community, Social Vision, Computer institute for Management System(CIMS), Dr. Shambhunath singh Research Foundation(SRF) , Premchand Margdarsan Kendra, Manav Seva Samiti , Prerna Kala Manch, Tarumitra are supporting us. We have decided to work on Varuna revival since last 3 years, when we saw that Varuna river is ailing from its source and it was being a sever . due to our efforts Commissnor Varanasi ordered to chek it. By our meetings and awareness camps Polithine is avoid by the native people. Schools & Colleges are making the plantation programe for it . we are crating a social pressure on Govt. of U.P. to make a green belt & oxygen Bank on both sides of this river especially in Varanasi city from Chokaghat to civil court. By this way there will be a beautiful and visible pollution free zone in this cultural city. We are planning to dig the riverbed and use this place for boating and water transport also. For this purpose we have demanded from Govt. of U.P. to make a pukka ghat at chokaghat.
We the people of save varuna movement are trying to revive the varuna with our best efforts. We have taken it as challenge, but our resources are very limited. Now days ,we are creating a public awareness through camps. Our sub convener Surya Bhan is on padyatra along with river Varuna and creating a good rapport about Varuna’ cleanness and revival. Our convener Dr. Vyomesh Chitravansh is trying to attract the people and activists on this problem. As a Executive member of National Committee on ailing rivers, he presented the problem of Varuna in The South Asian Convention of Ailing & Dead Rivers at New Delhi on July 8th, 2007. He is fighting for Varuna at state, national & international level. He is a good journalist and advocate from Varanasi. By his effort Varuna is kept in top 5 of ailing rivers of India.In coming period we are making plan to dig Varuna riverbed and to plantation on its both side with the help of native people. We are going to file a PIL in Allahabad High Court for Varuna in the light of Court’s orders.
For all these effort, we are expecting your help, support and contribution. Our humble appeal to all of you that please Give your full support through the moral, financial and other contributions to Save the Varuna and save the lifeline of Varanasi. Keep in touch.
Please forward this massage to your contacts, it will your support for our efforts
You may contact us on following numbers:-
-Dr. Vyomesh Chitravansh, convener,
Hamari Varuna Abhiyan,
c/o Prayash Foundation Trust,
SH3/18.B-4N, Sharda Vihar,
Meerapur (Basahi), Varanasi-221003 (India)
Email:vyomc@sify.com;forum_flash@sify.com
Cell. 91-94509608510; 91-9794254579
Surya Bhan, Sub Convener, HVA
c/oCentre for Social Development society
Sh8/40P-1, Veer Nagar Calony, Shivpur koat,
Shivpur, Varanasi.(India)
Email:csds@sify.com
Cell. 91-9452709385
Ajai Srivastava
c/o Hamari Varuna Samiti
S24/7 Taktakpur, Varanasi-221002,(India)
गुरुवार, 20 मार्च 2008
Centre-state wrangle delay river linking project
The Ken Betwa river linking project, the first river inter-linking project is due to start since three years, but has had trouble with meeting deadlines largely because of environmental and land acquisition problems.
The project will irrigate large parts of Bundelkhand spanning Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, which has been reeling under drought and farmer death for the last five years.
Three years ago Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh signed a historic accord to link the Ken and Betwa rivers. But nothing has progressed since then.
In Mahoba, the worst affected district of Bundelkhand farmers are dying after five years of drought.
Harsh Chand Member Panchayat Charkhari said, ''We have heard about the project, but as yet no work has begun.''
Nanoo, 80-year-old, once a boatman who ferried passengers across Betwa now makes a living picking coins passengers throw into the river. He hopes the project will bring water to his parched land.
On the main Jhansi-Khajuraho national highway, some 20 kilometers from Jhansi the Ken river will flow into the Betwa river though a canal.
The project has been delayed because of environmental problems because some 450 square kilometers of forest area belonging to the Panna National Park will be submerged.
State government's have not moved fast and lots of clearances are taking time.
India's first river inter linking project has run into trouble after wrangling between Centre and States, also there are four similar projects in the pipeline.
Sandeep Bhushan
ND TV.Com
Budget ignores important sectors
The Budget 2008-09 looks a bit archaic when Finance Minster Mr Chidambaram chanted the social sector mantra leaving aside the reform mantra. In the process the budget has overlooked some very important emerging sectors in world economy.
For example the estimated market value of organic food products across the world is $ 27.8 billion US dollar. Today above 31 million hectares of farmland has come under organic farming in the world and the largest organic food demand comes from Europe and North America. China has gone ahead of India by certifying three million hectares of pastoral land for organic farming. India with its vast land mass and huge labour force could be the chief hub of organic food. The way organic food demand is growing across the world the day is not far the developed nations will ban all kinds of non organic food stuff from developing nations. Organic farming is undoubtedly the future of world agriculture.
Similarly, the yoga sector has become one of the most vibrant emerging economic sectors in the world. The demand for yoga studios in USA and European nations is so high that it has become the hot pursuit of the commercial real estate giants. In corporate world, yoga has been recognized as a stress management tool and an elixir for increasing productivity.
According to a market survey made by a yoga journal, yoga is a $ 30 billion business in USA, which includes yoga accessories, DVD, apparel, mats and other equipments. India has tremendous potential to be the International guru of yoga. The budget could have given something to promote yoga sector.
Indian cuisines like dosa, idli, Punjabi thali, rosgola, chana masala, wada, vegetable chops, samosa and chats etc have become so popular in developed nations that we will not be in a position to meet the demand in the next five years. There is huge employment opportunity for Indian desi food makers in USA and Britain. Millions of people in unorganized sector in fact have immense skill to prepare the widest range of cuisines in the world. The Indian desi food chains will undoubtedly earn the much needed revenue for the finance minister.
India is the power house of non conventional energy source. Abundant solar energy, wind power, Biogas and Tidal energy could meet the energy need of a large number of people living in Indian villages. Besides, the market for alternate source of medicine is growing world over. The alternate source of medicines has a $ 40 billion market in US. Indians have the age old knowledge and skill to make medicines from herbs and shrubs which are abundantly available across the country. The budget 2008-09 missed the opportunity of tapping this potential sector.
India is a treasure trove of heritage tourism. Myths, mysteries and interesting history are abundant in this subcontinent. Sometimes back, UNESCO declared Veda chanting and Ramlila as world heritage. In the last year Budget, Chidambaram has allocated Rs 5 crore for its preservation. An estimated 15 to 20 crore people travel to pilgrim places in India and this sector could generate huge revenue. United Nation's World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) estimates that International tourists arrivals would touch the one billion mark by 2010 and the center of activity will be the Asia-pacific region.
Last year finance minister has given imported food to pet dogs. This year though tiger has got Rs 50 crore it is only a pittance. A single tiger can earn huge revenue if wild tiger watch forms an integral part of wild life tourism. It is the life time ambition of rich Indian and foreign tourists to sight a tiger in the natural habitat.
Finance Minister showed little interest in sport. India's performance is very dismal in Olympic game in comparison to many small and economically underdeveloped nations. Finance minister should have allocated more funds for sports activities.
Indian rivers have given the much needed energy to the industry sector. Finance Minister has not given any heed to the river problems as many have died and a large number of rivers are in dying stage. River pollution has become a menace which affects agriculture and creates drinking water problems for millions of people. In India 14 major rivers transport 50 million cubic meters of untreated sewerage into India's coastal water every year. Nearly 500 million people depend on the River Ganga. Scientists have predicted the river Ganga will become a seasonal stream.
Indians have eaten junk food worth Rs 40,000 crore as per National Sample Survey 2003. Along with the testing lab for soil Finance Minister should have allocated funds for testing food, vegetables and beverages in every district. The Budget 2008-09 should have promoted the emerging economic sectors as well as given resilience to conventional ones.
Sudhansu R Das
courtesy-Central Chronicle
For example the estimated market value of organic food products across the world is $ 27.8 billion US dollar. Today above 31 million hectares of farmland has come under organic farming in the world and the largest organic food demand comes from Europe and North America. China has gone ahead of India by certifying three million hectares of pastoral land for organic farming. India with its vast land mass and huge labour force could be the chief hub of organic food. The way organic food demand is growing across the world the day is not far the developed nations will ban all kinds of non organic food stuff from developing nations. Organic farming is undoubtedly the future of world agriculture.
Similarly, the yoga sector has become one of the most vibrant emerging economic sectors in the world. The demand for yoga studios in USA and European nations is so high that it has become the hot pursuit of the commercial real estate giants. In corporate world, yoga has been recognized as a stress management tool and an elixir for increasing productivity.
According to a market survey made by a yoga journal, yoga is a $ 30 billion business in USA, which includes yoga accessories, DVD, apparel, mats and other equipments. India has tremendous potential to be the International guru of yoga. The budget could have given something to promote yoga sector.
Indian cuisines like dosa, idli, Punjabi thali, rosgola, chana masala, wada, vegetable chops, samosa and chats etc have become so popular in developed nations that we will not be in a position to meet the demand in the next five years. There is huge employment opportunity for Indian desi food makers in USA and Britain. Millions of people in unorganized sector in fact have immense skill to prepare the widest range of cuisines in the world. The Indian desi food chains will undoubtedly earn the much needed revenue for the finance minister.
India is the power house of non conventional energy source. Abundant solar energy, wind power, Biogas and Tidal energy could meet the energy need of a large number of people living in Indian villages. Besides, the market for alternate source of medicine is growing world over. The alternate source of medicines has a $ 40 billion market in US. Indians have the age old knowledge and skill to make medicines from herbs and shrubs which are abundantly available across the country. The budget 2008-09 missed the opportunity of tapping this potential sector.
India is a treasure trove of heritage tourism. Myths, mysteries and interesting history are abundant in this subcontinent. Sometimes back, UNESCO declared Veda chanting and Ramlila as world heritage. In the last year Budget, Chidambaram has allocated Rs 5 crore for its preservation. An estimated 15 to 20 crore people travel to pilgrim places in India and this sector could generate huge revenue. United Nation's World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) estimates that International tourists arrivals would touch the one billion mark by 2010 and the center of activity will be the Asia-pacific region.
Last year finance minister has given imported food to pet dogs. This year though tiger has got Rs 50 crore it is only a pittance. A single tiger can earn huge revenue if wild tiger watch forms an integral part of wild life tourism. It is the life time ambition of rich Indian and foreign tourists to sight a tiger in the natural habitat.
Finance Minister showed little interest in sport. India's performance is very dismal in Olympic game in comparison to many small and economically underdeveloped nations. Finance minister should have allocated more funds for sports activities.
Indian rivers have given the much needed energy to the industry sector. Finance Minister has not given any heed to the river problems as many have died and a large number of rivers are in dying stage. River pollution has become a menace which affects agriculture and creates drinking water problems for millions of people. In India 14 major rivers transport 50 million cubic meters of untreated sewerage into India's coastal water every year. Nearly 500 million people depend on the River Ganga. Scientists have predicted the river Ganga will become a seasonal stream.
Indians have eaten junk food worth Rs 40,000 crore as per National Sample Survey 2003. Along with the testing lab for soil Finance Minister should have allocated funds for testing food, vegetables and beverages in every district. The Budget 2008-09 should have promoted the emerging economic sectors as well as given resilience to conventional ones.
Sudhansu R Das
courtesy-Central Chronicle
बुधवार, 19 मार्च 2008
Water Solutions
High tech industries like pharma and electronics are looking for high quality water and have the ability to pay. Industries seek operational efficiencies, and are willing to outsource their utility services. With projected growth rate in the industrial sector over 5 per cent, there is a lot that can be done by improving the on-site water management and reuse.
In the domestic sector too there is a huge demand for water. About 63 cities with a million population each are working on water and sanitation master plans. It is well known that distribution losses in taking water to the consumers is as high as 50 to 60 per cent. Also, the minimal tariffs collected do not support the water utilities in recovering their operation costs.
Whether one is for privatisation or not, almost everyone agrees on the need to plug the wastage and improve revenue collection. That is where Enzen Water hopes it can help. "Through operational contracts with municipal clients, we plan to use our expertise to help plug leakage and improve efficiency," said Brian Allum, CEO, Enzen Water.
Through a mix of international and local practices, he believes this can be done. Brian who has many years of expertise in the field has worked with the BWSSB for the last four years as part of the Thames Water team's pilot project to reduce leakage significantly. "One needs to understand the operating system, divide it into segments, place the meters, do some hydrology modelling, etc," he said, explaining how it was done and is being now extended.
He believes it is time to switch from the over-exploited groundwater use to surface water use. The other area of focus is treatment of sewage and waste water for reuse.
Enzen Water will offer strategic advice and sustainable solutions across the water and waste water value chain, said the company spokesman. Enzen Water is a wholly owned subsidiary of Enzen Global Solutions, based in Bangalore
(The author is Head - Environment Practice, Enzen Global Solutions, an energy and environment consulting firm)
In the domestic sector too there is a huge demand for water. About 63 cities with a million population each are working on water and sanitation master plans. It is well known that distribution losses in taking water to the consumers is as high as 50 to 60 per cent. Also, the minimal tariffs collected do not support the water utilities in recovering their operation costs.
Whether one is for privatisation or not, almost everyone agrees on the need to plug the wastage and improve revenue collection. That is where Enzen Water hopes it can help. "Through operational contracts with municipal clients, we plan to use our expertise to help plug leakage and improve efficiency," said Brian Allum, CEO, Enzen Water.
Through a mix of international and local practices, he believes this can be done. Brian who has many years of expertise in the field has worked with the BWSSB for the last four years as part of the Thames Water team's pilot project to reduce leakage significantly. "One needs to understand the operating system, divide it into segments, place the meters, do some hydrology modelling, etc," he said, explaining how it was done and is being now extended.
He believes it is time to switch from the over-exploited groundwater use to surface water use. The other area of focus is treatment of sewage and waste water for reuse.
Enzen Water will offer strategic advice and sustainable solutions across the water and waste water value chain, said the company spokesman. Enzen Water is a wholly owned subsidiary of Enzen Global Solutions, based in Bangalore
(The author is Head - Environment Practice, Enzen Global Solutions, an energy and environment consulting firm)
Water woes
Fresh water contamination is a perennial problem that needs to be tackled at the earliest, writes Dr Uma Rajarathnam.
The quality of fresh water is a cause for concern, not only in India but in most developing countries. Fresh water contamination is a perennial problem facing these countries with the source of contamination ranging from industrial effluents, untreated waste, run-off from agricultural fields, leaching from waste dumping sites and such others.
Of the 1,500 mld of sewage generated by the 23 macro cities in India, only a fraction of it is treated with the rest flowing freely into rivers and dumping grounds.
Industrial growth, increased urbanisation and the extensive use of synthetic organic substances have had a serious impact on fresh water bodies. Both ground as well as surface water are contaminated with heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants (POPs), besides nutrients that can cause adverse health effects.
In the urban areas, typically, fresh water pipes and sewage lines pass close to each other. Leaks in these pipes lead to the mixing of sewage water with fresh water. At times, this contamination happens at the source too. Pesticide run-off from agricultural fields is a major source of contamination in the rural areas. Pesticides contain carcinogens and can affect the nervous system and cause cancer.
Untreated sewage contains microbial pathogens and these are a major cause for the spread of diseases. Besides, the organic material in untreated municipal waste uses substantial quantities of oxygen for bio-degradation, thus upsetting the ecological balance of rivers and lakes. Similarly, the high level of nutrients such as phosphorous and nitrogen in both waste water and agricultural run-off can cause eutrophication in water bodies, besides increasing the level of nitrates in drinking water far above safety levels.
A serious cause for concern is the presence of POPs in both surface and ground water. POPs are the most harmful elements affecting human health. Typically, these find their way into aquatic life and in turn into the food chain. When sea food contaminated with these chemicals is consumed, it can lead to serious health effects.
Pollution can also be airborne where air pollutants such as sulphur dioxide from power plants, steel or motor vehicles can contaminate surface water. This contamination results in the acidification of water. Besides, chemicals such as arsenic and fluoride can occur naturally in ground water. Kolar and a few other districts in Karnataka have high levels of fluoride occurring naturally in its ground water.
While small quantities of fluoride can protect against dental caries and weakening of bones, large amounts can impair health by causing dental fluorosis and damage to the bones (skeletal fluorosis). Likewise, arsenic found in the earth crust affected drinking water in six districts of West Bengal. High arsenic leads to skin lesions.
Lead is another source of contamination and this finds its way into drinking water from the water pipes which use lead. Lead does not degrade and once accumulated in the body, leads to severe health effects, especially among children ranging from reduced IQ levels to serious damage to the central nervous system and kidneys in instances of high exposure.
While chemical pollutants have serious health effects, microbial pathogens - virus bacteria, protozoa and parasitic worms - present in water are the chief causes for intestinal (enteric) diseases. These are highly infectious and transmitted mainly through water. Hepatitis, cholera, dysentery and typhoid are the most common water-borne diseases. The E Coli bacteria is an important cause of watery diarrhoea in developing countries.
A World Bank study of 2000 put the number of yearly deaths in India among children due to dirty water at 2.06 million. The UNICEF estimates our losses in terms of medical costs and loss of health at Rs 3,600 crore. India spent Rs 2,745 crore to treat diarrhoea cases alone during the period 1989-2001. The Government of India has spent about Rs 6,700 crore annually on treating water and sanitation related diseases alone.
Given the high cost of contaminated water and the resultant water-borne diseases, the way ahead would be to take steps both at the micro and macro level. To begin with, changes in behavioural patterns such as washing hands, eating washed fruits, drinking boiled water would cut down incidences of microbial diseases. Similarly, measures like safe excreta disposal and improvement in water quality as well as quantity of potable water supplied, would go a long way in reducing the incidence of water-borne diseases.
While the use of unsustainable technologies needs to be checked, indigenous low cost, on site techniques should be encouraged. For example, ecological sanitation like reed bed technologies is essentially based on the traditional understanding of environment. Besides, steps like industrial effluent control, proper treatment of municipal sewage and solid waste, and good agricultural practices to reduce the quantum of nitrates in soil would help to stem fresh water contamination right at the source.
(The author is Head - Environment Practice, Enzen Global Solutions, an energy and environment consulting firm)
The quality of fresh water is a cause for concern, not only in India but in most developing countries. Fresh water contamination is a perennial problem facing these countries with the source of contamination ranging from industrial effluents, untreated waste, run-off from agricultural fields, leaching from waste dumping sites and such others.
Of the 1,500 mld of sewage generated by the 23 macro cities in India, only a fraction of it is treated with the rest flowing freely into rivers and dumping grounds.
Industrial growth, increased urbanisation and the extensive use of synthetic organic substances have had a serious impact on fresh water bodies. Both ground as well as surface water are contaminated with heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants (POPs), besides nutrients that can cause adverse health effects.
In the urban areas, typically, fresh water pipes and sewage lines pass close to each other. Leaks in these pipes lead to the mixing of sewage water with fresh water. At times, this contamination happens at the source too. Pesticide run-off from agricultural fields is a major source of contamination in the rural areas. Pesticides contain carcinogens and can affect the nervous system and cause cancer.
Untreated sewage contains microbial pathogens and these are a major cause for the spread of diseases. Besides, the organic material in untreated municipal waste uses substantial quantities of oxygen for bio-degradation, thus upsetting the ecological balance of rivers and lakes. Similarly, the high level of nutrients such as phosphorous and nitrogen in both waste water and agricultural run-off can cause eutrophication in water bodies, besides increasing the level of nitrates in drinking water far above safety levels.
A serious cause for concern is the presence of POPs in both surface and ground water. POPs are the most harmful elements affecting human health. Typically, these find their way into aquatic life and in turn into the food chain. When sea food contaminated with these chemicals is consumed, it can lead to serious health effects.
Pollution can also be airborne where air pollutants such as sulphur dioxide from power plants, steel or motor vehicles can contaminate surface water. This contamination results in the acidification of water. Besides, chemicals such as arsenic and fluoride can occur naturally in ground water. Kolar and a few other districts in Karnataka have high levels of fluoride occurring naturally in its ground water.
While small quantities of fluoride can protect against dental caries and weakening of bones, large amounts can impair health by causing dental fluorosis and damage to the bones (skeletal fluorosis). Likewise, arsenic found in the earth crust affected drinking water in six districts of West Bengal. High arsenic leads to skin lesions.
Lead is another source of contamination and this finds its way into drinking water from the water pipes which use lead. Lead does not degrade and once accumulated in the body, leads to severe health effects, especially among children ranging from reduced IQ levels to serious damage to the central nervous system and kidneys in instances of high exposure.
While chemical pollutants have serious health effects, microbial pathogens - virus bacteria, protozoa and parasitic worms - present in water are the chief causes for intestinal (enteric) diseases. These are highly infectious and transmitted mainly through water. Hepatitis, cholera, dysentery and typhoid are the most common water-borne diseases. The E Coli bacteria is an important cause of watery diarrhoea in developing countries.
A World Bank study of 2000 put the number of yearly deaths in India among children due to dirty water at 2.06 million. The UNICEF estimates our losses in terms of medical costs and loss of health at Rs 3,600 crore. India spent Rs 2,745 crore to treat diarrhoea cases alone during the period 1989-2001. The Government of India has spent about Rs 6,700 crore annually on treating water and sanitation related diseases alone.
Given the high cost of contaminated water and the resultant water-borne diseases, the way ahead would be to take steps both at the micro and macro level. To begin with, changes in behavioural patterns such as washing hands, eating washed fruits, drinking boiled water would cut down incidences of microbial diseases. Similarly, measures like safe excreta disposal and improvement in water quality as well as quantity of potable water supplied, would go a long way in reducing the incidence of water-borne diseases.
While the use of unsustainable technologies needs to be checked, indigenous low cost, on site techniques should be encouraged. For example, ecological sanitation like reed bed technologies is essentially based on the traditional understanding of environment. Besides, steps like industrial effluent control, proper treatment of municipal sewage and solid waste, and good agricultural practices to reduce the quantum of nitrates in soil would help to stem fresh water contamination right at the source.
(The author is Head - Environment Practice, Enzen Global Solutions, an energy and environment consulting firm)
EMBANKMENTS TO DISASTER
Living under constant threat of eviction
People from several villages in Bihar are opposing the construction of a pair of embankments on the Bagmati river and have stopped work on one of them. Less visible behind their cries is a state administration that seems to be set on continuing a history of trapping villages in flood waters, reports Dinesh Mishra.
16 March 2008 - A pair of embankments along the Bagmati river is under construction from Runni Saidpur in Sitamarhi to Hayaghat in Darbhanga district in Bihar. The Bagmati, flowing into the Indo-Gangetic plains from Nepal, has a length of about 270 kilometres in Bihar. Bihar has a history of flooding from embankments, and in this case too, many villages are likely to be trapped between these mud walls. Floodwaters will pass over these villages for all times to come.
Villagers from Benipur, Bharthua and Jivajor, under the banner of Punarwas Sangharsh Samiti, Benipur are staging a dharna since 25 December 2007 demanding rehabilitation. They have been sitting here off and on since 11 April 2007 after the construction of the Rs.792 crores project started in the middle reaches of the Bagmati.
Says Rajat Singh, convenor of the Samiti, "Construction had been stopped for a while till the villagers were allotted land for new houses outside the embankments along with compensation for building the houses." This rehabilitation had been promised within a time span of three months last year by the project officials and the collector of Muzaffarpur. In the meanwhile, the officials requested that work be resumed. The villagers yielded, hoping that the officials would keep their promise, but nothing followed. In the meanwhile, the Bagmati mauled these villages thoroughly during the 2007 floods as the villages were located between the two (under construction) embankments.
The villagers wrote back to the collector of Muzaffarpur on 3 December last year with copies to the chief minister and others asking for relocation at the earliest or, at least, some action by 15 December 2007. When there was no response, they staged a dharna once again on 25 December and that continues till date, into the third month. Their peaceful agitation is being thwarted by hired local goons and attempts are being made to tire out the agitators or split the movement.
Benipur, once a prosperous village of about 500 families and the ancestral village of legendary Ram Briksha Benipuri, a noted Hindi litterateur, has faced sedimentation due to the flood waters, with mud entering the dwellings upto a height of two to three feet. Thatched houses had to be constructed above some of the pucca buildings to accommodate the flood victims, who had to stay in these makeshift huts for over two months. The house of Ram Briksha Benipuri had to be cleared of about two feet of mud to celebrate his birthday on 23 December last year. The entire Kharif crop was washed away and the chances of any Rabi crop have dwindled because the whole of the 750 acres land of the village is now sand cast.
Looking back: The history of Bagmati
The new embankments are preceded by an astounding history of flood control work around this river.
Peter Salberg, a British engineer based in Assam, had a sent a note to the Patna Flood Conference in 1937, which was discussing nationwide floods and possible measures to combat them. In November 1937, at the Patna Flood Conference, he lamented "…how man's interference started and developed and how the situation grew progressively worse owing to the power of government and skill of engineers and how substantial bundhs had sprung up every where with the complication of embankment roads and the railways." The Government of Bihar (GoB) calls such statements as borne out of a colonial mindset and is going ahead with the construction of embankments.
The British treated the Bagmati as an unstable and virgin river and were opposed to its embanking. They wanted to wait till the river course got stable. This view had been endorsed by Dr K L Rao, the then director of Central Water and Power Commission (CWPC), when he had visited the basin in 1954. But there was a spurt in embanking rivers once construction of embankments started on Bihar's most vibrant river, the Kosi, in 1955. This paved way for the construction of embankments along the lower reaches of the Bagmati in Bihar -- Hayaghat in Darbhanga to Badlaghat in Khagaria -- without much planning or debate. (Rao later became the Minister of Irrigation at the centre in 1963.)
It was stated then that the river course in this reach was stable and the embankments put along the stable path would be effective in flood control. Many reports of the Water Resources Department (WRD) of Bihar decried this assumption because in a hurry to tame the river, serious mistakes were committed in fixing the heights and spacing between the two embankments. However, the mistakes went unnoticed in the euphoria of independence and development.
Success stories of taming the Kosi were doing the rounds in the 1960s and the Gandak Project in western Bihar was taking shape, because of the interest shown by then President of India, Dr Rajendra Prasad, who hailed from that basin. A multi-purpose scheme to irrigate areas on either side of the river with the help of canals by constructing a barrage south of Dheng along with embankments on either side of the Bagmati (from Dheng to Runni Saidpur) and the Lalbakeya (from Bairgania to Adauri) in Sitamarhi district was planned following the floods of 1966 and 1969. However, the portion of the river between Runni Saidpur and Hayaghat was not embanked. The government claimed the the river was too unstable.
Then followed the clamping of emergency in the country. People could not voice their protest and the construction of the embankments saw completion. Very little work was done for irrigation itself. Only an irrigation colony was set up in Suppi village and a store for machinery in Gamharia village. The irrigation colony lies abandoned at the moment and the machinery store continues to be a junk yard. A foundation stone for a barrage project was laid in 1983 near Ramnagar by the then chief minister Chandra Shekhar Singh. It remains there, silently telling the story of subsequent inaction.
A rehabilitation that never happened
The construction of the embankments was completed by 1978 and the people trapped within the embankments needed to be relocated. The 96 trapped villages within the two embankments of the Bagmati had a population of nearly 192,000 (1971 Census). It is now 2008, and their rehabilitation is yet to be completed.
Rehabilitation here has been a cruel joke inflicted on the displaced people. The land was acquired for rehabilitating them but the plot boundaries, in most cases, were not marked and in the absence of such marking, it was free for all and the land was occupied on a 'fist come first grab' basis. Many oustees are still waiting for the land papers and those who could manage to get the papers, complain of mismatch between paper and reality.
Nobody got anything towards the cost of construction of the house and all that they got was the shifting allowance for moving the house from within the embankments to the rehabilitation site. This was fixed at Rs.300 for a thatched house, Rs.700 for a tiled house and Rs.1500 for a pucca house. Most of this money was consumed in bribes and cost of travel to the office.
The only source of livelihood, the agricultural land, remained within the two embankments and no compensation whatsoever was paid to anybody for this lost land. The farmers were expected to travel from the rehabilitation site to till their land.
Further, the entry point of the Manusmara River (an old course of the Bagmati) into the Bagmati was blocked and Manusmara water was spread into 12,000 hectares of land belonging to nearly 12 villages that remain under water for whole of the year. As if that were not sufficient, untreated effluents from Riga Sugar Mill are discharged into the Manusmara and the stagnated water has turned black killing all the fishes and any possibility of agriculture too.
New embankment, newer problems
The utility of the new embankment from Runni Saidpur to Hayaghat, should be seen in this backdrop. First, no river course gets stabilised in 30 years time; it takes centuries for that. How could a river that was designated unstable in 1970s become stable in such a short time? Second, embankments prevent a river from overflowing its banks during floods but they also prevent the entry of floodwater. This leads to a major problem as the embanked river is no longer able to fulfill its primary function -– draining out excess water. With the tributaries prevented from discharging into the river and accumulated rainwater finding no way out, the surrounding areas quickly become flooded.
The situation is aggravated by seepage from under the embankments. The areas outside the levees remain waterlogged for months after the rainy season because this water has no way of flowing out. Theoretically, sluice gates located at these junctions should solve the problem but, in practice, such gates quickly become useless as the bed level of the main river rises above the surrounding land; operating the gates would let water out instead of allowing outside water in. When the sluice gates have failed, the only option left is to also embank the tributary. This results, then, in water being locked up between the embankments.
Moreover, every embankment breaches at some point. When a breach occurs, there is a deluge. All this has happened in the upper reaches of the Bagmati and still there have been no lessons learnt.
Says Ram Chandra Singh (75) of Benipur village and a former engineer working with the Bagmati Project, "The embankments were constructed about 30 years ago and, on average, breach at five places annually. They must have breached over 150 times by now. That is the flood protection that we are going to get after we move from here."
Construction of the embankments between Runni Saidpur and Hayaghat started in early 2007 and the resistance to it followed immediately thereafter. Their dharna was withdrawn after April 2007 when the government promised that all the procedures regarding rehabilitation would be completed within three months. Then an advertisement appeared in the name of the Secretary, Department of Water Resources of Bihar in July 2007 in various newspapers of Bihar saying "…the land prices for the acquired land will be fixed by adding 50 per cent to its value. A solatium of 30 per cent would be added to this price under normal procedures. But those land holders who will come forward to part with their land voluntarily, will be given 60 per cent solatium – 30 per cent more than the normal solatium. The land holders are, therefore, requested under Section – 4 of the Land Acquisition Act to hand over the details of their lands along with an affidavit giving their consent to the Special Land Acquisition Officer so that they can be given 60 per cent solatium."
The government hopes that by offering such 'generous' compensation, the people will vacate houses, lands and the source of livelihood to pave way for the construction of the embankments, the benefits of which have always been doubtful. Thus by offering fifty per cent more for the price of the land and adding a maximum solatium of sixty percent to it, the government is prepared to pay 240 per cent of the market price of the land to the land owners. How much land an oustee can actually buy when he goes to tap the open market is anybody's guess. But the story of rehabilitation does not end here. Where will the people resettle?
A troubled future
Benipur, Bharthua and Jivajor are located east of NH-77 connecting Muzaffarpur to Sitamarhi and a railway line connecting Muzaffarpur to Sitamarhi that runs parallel to this road is also under construction. The distance between NH-77 and the railway embankment will not be more than a kilometre at any point. Both these structures are intercepted by the river embankment under construction on the northern side. If the oustees choose to settle closer to their agricultural land, the only convenient plot would be between NH-77, the railway embankment and the Bagmati's right embankment. All the drainage possibilities of this trough are blocked and the oustees would need boats much earlier than the rehabilitation sites that they are asking for.
If the Bagmati's embankment breaches in this zone, there will be disaster. If the river embankment remains intact, there will be tremendous sedimentation within the embankments and all the existing villages would get submerged into sand soon. A stage would come, may be within 10-15 years when the oustees would find it better to revert back to their villages within the embankments and start life afresh. The other option would be to settle on the embankments, which is what most people trapped between the embankments or rehabilitated on the lands that got waterlogged, subsequently, resort to.
Such settlers live there under a constant threat of eviction any moment by the Water Resources Department in the name of maintenance of the structures.
Protests continue
Along with the dharna that has been continuing since 25 December last year, a padyatra was taken out by the people likely to be affected in a similar fashion further down from Laheriasarai to Benibad (Darbhanga District) under the banner of Barh Mukti Morcha on 5-6 January 2008. They demanded unconditional abandonment of the project. Representatives met the chief minister of Bihar who advised them to meet the secretary of the WRD on the plea that it was a technical matter and the secretary was the competent person to talk to. When the protesters met the secretary, he said that the matter related to the policies of the state and he had little say in that. As officials pass the buck, the embankment stands tall.
Tej Narayan Singh, 82, a village elder from Benipur, says, "We don't have the means to prevent the government from constructing this embankment. But the government should look into our case sympathetically. We only want to be relocated to a safe place."
Shiv Kumar Singh, 62, retired teacher, who put all his savings in building a house in the village, repents his decision. "If only I had known that I will have to leave my house and go elsewhere, I may not have constructed this house. Further, the government does not say a word about our livelihood. We are completely dependent on agriculture and we are going to lose this. There is no provision for providing us agricultural land. Does the government expect us to till on heaps of sand?"
I visited Benipur on 8 March. The construction of the embankment near near Benipur has come to a halt and the protesters have gone back to their respective villages. They are ready to bounce back any time they find the earth moving machineries making inroads to the construction site. ⊕
Dinesh Mishra
Dinesh Kumar Mishra is the Convenor of Barh Mukti Abhiyan (Freedom From Floods Campaign). He is based in Patna.
People from several villages in Bihar are opposing the construction of a pair of embankments on the Bagmati river and have stopped work on one of them. Less visible behind their cries is a state administration that seems to be set on continuing a history of trapping villages in flood waters, reports Dinesh Mishra.
16 March 2008 - A pair of embankments along the Bagmati river is under construction from Runni Saidpur in Sitamarhi to Hayaghat in Darbhanga district in Bihar. The Bagmati, flowing into the Indo-Gangetic plains from Nepal, has a length of about 270 kilometres in Bihar. Bihar has a history of flooding from embankments, and in this case too, many villages are likely to be trapped between these mud walls. Floodwaters will pass over these villages for all times to come.
Villagers from Benipur, Bharthua and Jivajor, under the banner of Punarwas Sangharsh Samiti, Benipur are staging a dharna since 25 December 2007 demanding rehabilitation. They have been sitting here off and on since 11 April 2007 after the construction of the Rs.792 crores project started in the middle reaches of the Bagmati.
Says Rajat Singh, convenor of the Samiti, "Construction had been stopped for a while till the villagers were allotted land for new houses outside the embankments along with compensation for building the houses." This rehabilitation had been promised within a time span of three months last year by the project officials and the collector of Muzaffarpur. In the meanwhile, the officials requested that work be resumed. The villagers yielded, hoping that the officials would keep their promise, but nothing followed. In the meanwhile, the Bagmati mauled these villages thoroughly during the 2007 floods as the villages were located between the two (under construction) embankments.
The villagers wrote back to the collector of Muzaffarpur on 3 December last year with copies to the chief minister and others asking for relocation at the earliest or, at least, some action by 15 December 2007. When there was no response, they staged a dharna once again on 25 December and that continues till date, into the third month. Their peaceful agitation is being thwarted by hired local goons and attempts are being made to tire out the agitators or split the movement.
Benipur, once a prosperous village of about 500 families and the ancestral village of legendary Ram Briksha Benipuri, a noted Hindi litterateur, has faced sedimentation due to the flood waters, with mud entering the dwellings upto a height of two to three feet. Thatched houses had to be constructed above some of the pucca buildings to accommodate the flood victims, who had to stay in these makeshift huts for over two months. The house of Ram Briksha Benipuri had to be cleared of about two feet of mud to celebrate his birthday on 23 December last year. The entire Kharif crop was washed away and the chances of any Rabi crop have dwindled because the whole of the 750 acres land of the village is now sand cast.
Looking back: The history of Bagmati
The new embankments are preceded by an astounding history of flood control work around this river.
Peter Salberg, a British engineer based in Assam, had a sent a note to the Patna Flood Conference in 1937, which was discussing nationwide floods and possible measures to combat them. In November 1937, at the Patna Flood Conference, he lamented "…how man's interference started and developed and how the situation grew progressively worse owing to the power of government and skill of engineers and how substantial bundhs had sprung up every where with the complication of embankment roads and the railways." The Government of Bihar (GoB) calls such statements as borne out of a colonial mindset and is going ahead with the construction of embankments.
The British treated the Bagmati as an unstable and virgin river and were opposed to its embanking. They wanted to wait till the river course got stable. This view had been endorsed by Dr K L Rao, the then director of Central Water and Power Commission (CWPC), when he had visited the basin in 1954. But there was a spurt in embanking rivers once construction of embankments started on Bihar's most vibrant river, the Kosi, in 1955. This paved way for the construction of embankments along the lower reaches of the Bagmati in Bihar -- Hayaghat in Darbhanga to Badlaghat in Khagaria -- without much planning or debate. (Rao later became the Minister of Irrigation at the centre in 1963.)
It was stated then that the river course in this reach was stable and the embankments put along the stable path would be effective in flood control. Many reports of the Water Resources Department (WRD) of Bihar decried this assumption because in a hurry to tame the river, serious mistakes were committed in fixing the heights and spacing between the two embankments. However, the mistakes went unnoticed in the euphoria of independence and development.
Success stories of taming the Kosi were doing the rounds in the 1960s and the Gandak Project in western Bihar was taking shape, because of the interest shown by then President of India, Dr Rajendra Prasad, who hailed from that basin. A multi-purpose scheme to irrigate areas on either side of the river with the help of canals by constructing a barrage south of Dheng along with embankments on either side of the Bagmati (from Dheng to Runni Saidpur) and the Lalbakeya (from Bairgania to Adauri) in Sitamarhi district was planned following the floods of 1966 and 1969. However, the portion of the river between Runni Saidpur and Hayaghat was not embanked. The government claimed the the river was too unstable.
Then followed the clamping of emergency in the country. People could not voice their protest and the construction of the embankments saw completion. Very little work was done for irrigation itself. Only an irrigation colony was set up in Suppi village and a store for machinery in Gamharia village. The irrigation colony lies abandoned at the moment and the machinery store continues to be a junk yard. A foundation stone for a barrage project was laid in 1983 near Ramnagar by the then chief minister Chandra Shekhar Singh. It remains there, silently telling the story of subsequent inaction.
A rehabilitation that never happened
The construction of the embankments was completed by 1978 and the people trapped within the embankments needed to be relocated. The 96 trapped villages within the two embankments of the Bagmati had a population of nearly 192,000 (1971 Census). It is now 2008, and their rehabilitation is yet to be completed.
Rehabilitation here has been a cruel joke inflicted on the displaced people. The land was acquired for rehabilitating them but the plot boundaries, in most cases, were not marked and in the absence of such marking, it was free for all and the land was occupied on a 'fist come first grab' basis. Many oustees are still waiting for the land papers and those who could manage to get the papers, complain of mismatch between paper and reality.
Nobody got anything towards the cost of construction of the house and all that they got was the shifting allowance for moving the house from within the embankments to the rehabilitation site. This was fixed at Rs.300 for a thatched house, Rs.700 for a tiled house and Rs.1500 for a pucca house. Most of this money was consumed in bribes and cost of travel to the office.
The only source of livelihood, the agricultural land, remained within the two embankments and no compensation whatsoever was paid to anybody for this lost land. The farmers were expected to travel from the rehabilitation site to till their land.
Further, the entry point of the Manusmara River (an old course of the Bagmati) into the Bagmati was blocked and Manusmara water was spread into 12,000 hectares of land belonging to nearly 12 villages that remain under water for whole of the year. As if that were not sufficient, untreated effluents from Riga Sugar Mill are discharged into the Manusmara and the stagnated water has turned black killing all the fishes and any possibility of agriculture too.
New embankment, newer problems
The utility of the new embankment from Runni Saidpur to Hayaghat, should be seen in this backdrop. First, no river course gets stabilised in 30 years time; it takes centuries for that. How could a river that was designated unstable in 1970s become stable in such a short time? Second, embankments prevent a river from overflowing its banks during floods but they also prevent the entry of floodwater. This leads to a major problem as the embanked river is no longer able to fulfill its primary function -– draining out excess water. With the tributaries prevented from discharging into the river and accumulated rainwater finding no way out, the surrounding areas quickly become flooded.
The situation is aggravated by seepage from under the embankments. The areas outside the levees remain waterlogged for months after the rainy season because this water has no way of flowing out. Theoretically, sluice gates located at these junctions should solve the problem but, in practice, such gates quickly become useless as the bed level of the main river rises above the surrounding land; operating the gates would let water out instead of allowing outside water in. When the sluice gates have failed, the only option left is to also embank the tributary. This results, then, in water being locked up between the embankments.
Moreover, every embankment breaches at some point. When a breach occurs, there is a deluge. All this has happened in the upper reaches of the Bagmati and still there have been no lessons learnt.
Says Ram Chandra Singh (75) of Benipur village and a former engineer working with the Bagmati Project, "The embankments were constructed about 30 years ago and, on average, breach at five places annually. They must have breached over 150 times by now. That is the flood protection that we are going to get after we move from here."
Construction of the embankments between Runni Saidpur and Hayaghat started in early 2007 and the resistance to it followed immediately thereafter. Their dharna was withdrawn after April 2007 when the government promised that all the procedures regarding rehabilitation would be completed within three months. Then an advertisement appeared in the name of the Secretary, Department of Water Resources of Bihar in July 2007 in various newspapers of Bihar saying "…the land prices for the acquired land will be fixed by adding 50 per cent to its value. A solatium of 30 per cent would be added to this price under normal procedures. But those land holders who will come forward to part with their land voluntarily, will be given 60 per cent solatium – 30 per cent more than the normal solatium. The land holders are, therefore, requested under Section – 4 of the Land Acquisition Act to hand over the details of their lands along with an affidavit giving their consent to the Special Land Acquisition Officer so that they can be given 60 per cent solatium."
The government hopes that by offering such 'generous' compensation, the people will vacate houses, lands and the source of livelihood to pave way for the construction of the embankments, the benefits of which have always been doubtful. Thus by offering fifty per cent more for the price of the land and adding a maximum solatium of sixty percent to it, the government is prepared to pay 240 per cent of the market price of the land to the land owners. How much land an oustee can actually buy when he goes to tap the open market is anybody's guess. But the story of rehabilitation does not end here. Where will the people resettle?
A troubled future
Benipur, Bharthua and Jivajor are located east of NH-77 connecting Muzaffarpur to Sitamarhi and a railway line connecting Muzaffarpur to Sitamarhi that runs parallel to this road is also under construction. The distance between NH-77 and the railway embankment will not be more than a kilometre at any point. Both these structures are intercepted by the river embankment under construction on the northern side. If the oustees choose to settle closer to their agricultural land, the only convenient plot would be between NH-77, the railway embankment and the Bagmati's right embankment. All the drainage possibilities of this trough are blocked and the oustees would need boats much earlier than the rehabilitation sites that they are asking for.
If the Bagmati's embankment breaches in this zone, there will be disaster. If the river embankment remains intact, there will be tremendous sedimentation within the embankments and all the existing villages would get submerged into sand soon. A stage would come, may be within 10-15 years when the oustees would find it better to revert back to their villages within the embankments and start life afresh. The other option would be to settle on the embankments, which is what most people trapped between the embankments or rehabilitated on the lands that got waterlogged, subsequently, resort to.
Such settlers live there under a constant threat of eviction any moment by the Water Resources Department in the name of maintenance of the structures.
Protests continue
Along with the dharna that has been continuing since 25 December last year, a padyatra was taken out by the people likely to be affected in a similar fashion further down from Laheriasarai to Benibad (Darbhanga District) under the banner of Barh Mukti Morcha on 5-6 January 2008. They demanded unconditional abandonment of the project. Representatives met the chief minister of Bihar who advised them to meet the secretary of the WRD on the plea that it was a technical matter and the secretary was the competent person to talk to. When the protesters met the secretary, he said that the matter related to the policies of the state and he had little say in that. As officials pass the buck, the embankment stands tall.
Tej Narayan Singh, 82, a village elder from Benipur, says, "We don't have the means to prevent the government from constructing this embankment. But the government should look into our case sympathetically. We only want to be relocated to a safe place."
Shiv Kumar Singh, 62, retired teacher, who put all his savings in building a house in the village, repents his decision. "If only I had known that I will have to leave my house and go elsewhere, I may not have constructed this house. Further, the government does not say a word about our livelihood. We are completely dependent on agriculture and we are going to lose this. There is no provision for providing us agricultural land. Does the government expect us to till on heaps of sand?"
I visited Benipur on 8 March. The construction of the embankment near near Benipur has come to a halt and the protesters have gone back to their respective villages. They are ready to bounce back any time they find the earth moving machineries making inroads to the construction site. ⊕
Dinesh Mishra
Dinesh Kumar Mishra is the Convenor of Barh Mukti Abhiyan (Freedom From Floods Campaign). He is based in Patna.
Impact of Safe Water, Sanitation on World's Poor
Effects Go Beyond Better Health, Experts Say
It is safe to say that a world without safe, abundant and easily accessible water is hard for most Americans to imagine -- and one they would find hard to tolerate. The same goes for life without private, relatively clean places in which to go to the toilet.
Around the world, however, 1.1 billion people get their water from rivers and ponds, or from springs and wells open to the air and subject to contamination. More than twice as many -- 2.5 billion people in all -- use public latrines or the whole outdoors as their bathroom.
Access to safe water and basic sanitation were among the "Millennium Development Goals" that 189 heads of state from around the world adopted in 2000. Specifically, they pledged that by 2015 they would reduce by at least half the proportion of people living without those two essential comforts of civilization. The year 1990 was taken as the baseline against which progress would be measured.
Reaching those goals would have profound effects on the world's poorest people -- effects far beyond better health, the most obvious one. The World Health Organization and UNICEF recently issued a report on the progress achieved as of 2002, the midpoint in that 25-year period.
In 1990, 77 percent of the globe's population had access to indoor running water, piped public taps, protected wells and rainwater. In 2002, 83 percent of people had those "improved" drinking water sources. Progress is on track to meet the target of 89 percent by 2015.
Equally impressive is the fact that 52 percent of people have the best of the "improvements": household running water.
"More than half the population of the planet uses piped water at home. That is a stunning achievement," said Jamie Bartram, coordinator of WHO's water, sanitation and health program.
The sanitation news is less encouraging.
"Improved" forms of sanitation include not only flush toilets, but also latrines that are used by only one household, and are ventilated and designed to isolate waste from the surrounding environment. In 1990, 49 percent of people used such facilities. By 2002, that had increased to just 58 percent.
Unless progress accelerates, the target of 75 percent coverage will not be met, with the effort falling short by about half a billion people.
"The gap between the haves and the have-nots is widening," said Vanessa Tobin, UNICEF's chief of sanitation. "We need to have local solutions that are sustainable and affordable."
China and India together have the most people without safe water or improved sanitation. In the case of sanitation, 1.5 billion people in those two countries do without. Among regions, though, Africa is worst off. The entire sub-Saharan part of that continent today is only somewhat ahead of the United States of 1900.
In that year, 42 percent of Americans had access to public water and 29 percent to sewage systems. Among Africans in 2002, 58 percent had access to improved water (only 16 percent with household connections), and 36 percent had improved sanitation.
Although clean water and toilets have many benefits, some are not entirely obvious.
Both improvements lead to better health, although how much each contributes has been hard to measure. That is because people's health is also affected by personal habits, methods of storing and cooking food, as well as by education and income.
Piped water reduces the incidence of typhoid fever -- an outcome seen both in contemporary studies and in historical analysis. In Philadelphia, for example, a study showed that as water filtration was brought to the city's six water districts between 1902 and 1909, typhoid mortality in each district fell. Between 1888 and 1912, deaths in German cities from that disease fell by 80 percent, with half of the decrease attributed to piped water.
But clean water by itself has relatively little effect on rates of other water-borne infections, such as childhood diarrhea. Those illnesses are mostly transmitted by the fecal contamination of food, dishes and hands. They reflect the amount of water a household has for washing and hygiene, not the quality of the water.
For that reason, bringing the source of water to the house or yard reduces the diarrhea rate by 44 percent, while water delivered to a public "standpipe" -- where someone must go with a water container -- reduces the rate only by 6 percent.
Improved sanitation cuts diarrhea incidence by a quarter to a third. Interventions that promote personal hygiene, such as hand washing, decrease it by 42 percent, according to a recent analysis of studies by Lorna Fewtrell of the University of Wales and Jack M. Colford of the University of California at Berkeley.
Traditional water-borne diseases, however, are not the only ones reduced by clean water and toilets.
Trachoma is a bacterial infection of the eyelid responsible for about 6 million cases of blindness worldwide. Better water and sanitation reduces trachoma rates by an average of 27 percent. Once-a-day face washing with a handful of water is one of the four chief interventions being pushed in an international effort to eliminate trachoma.
Curiously, health benefits are far down the list of reasons that people in poor countries give for wanting better water and sanitation services. Relief from the drudgery of carrying water long distances -- a chore borne almost entirely by women and girls -- is the chief benefit that people mention.
A 2002 UNICEF study of rural households in 23 sub-Saharan countries found that a quarter of them spent 30 minutes to an hour each day collecting and carrying water, and 19 percent spent an hour or more. With closer water comes greater self-esteem, less harassment of women, and better school attendance by girls -- three things spontaneously mentioned by people in Ethiopia, Ghana, Tanzania and India in a different study.
Toilets are similarly liberating. In many cultures, rural women venture out to urinate and defecate only at night.
In a study of 320 households in the West African nation of Benin, people were asked to rank the benefits of owning a latrine on a scale of 1 to 4. "Avoid discomforts of the bush" came in at 3.98. "Gain prestige from visitors" was 3.96. "Avoid snakes" was 3.85.
By David Brown
It is safe to say that a world without safe, abundant and easily accessible water is hard for most Americans to imagine -- and one they would find hard to tolerate. The same goes for life without private, relatively clean places in which to go to the toilet.
Around the world, however, 1.1 billion people get their water from rivers and ponds, or from springs and wells open to the air and subject to contamination. More than twice as many -- 2.5 billion people in all -- use public latrines or the whole outdoors as their bathroom.
Access to safe water and basic sanitation were among the "Millennium Development Goals" that 189 heads of state from around the world adopted in 2000. Specifically, they pledged that by 2015 they would reduce by at least half the proportion of people living without those two essential comforts of civilization. The year 1990 was taken as the baseline against which progress would be measured.
Reaching those goals would have profound effects on the world's poorest people -- effects far beyond better health, the most obvious one. The World Health Organization and UNICEF recently issued a report on the progress achieved as of 2002, the midpoint in that 25-year period.
In 1990, 77 percent of the globe's population had access to indoor running water, piped public taps, protected wells and rainwater. In 2002, 83 percent of people had those "improved" drinking water sources. Progress is on track to meet the target of 89 percent by 2015.
Equally impressive is the fact that 52 percent of people have the best of the "improvements": household running water.
"More than half the population of the planet uses piped water at home. That is a stunning achievement," said Jamie Bartram, coordinator of WHO's water, sanitation and health program.
The sanitation news is less encouraging.
"Improved" forms of sanitation include not only flush toilets, but also latrines that are used by only one household, and are ventilated and designed to isolate waste from the surrounding environment. In 1990, 49 percent of people used such facilities. By 2002, that had increased to just 58 percent.
Unless progress accelerates, the target of 75 percent coverage will not be met, with the effort falling short by about half a billion people.
"The gap between the haves and the have-nots is widening," said Vanessa Tobin, UNICEF's chief of sanitation. "We need to have local solutions that are sustainable and affordable."
China and India together have the most people without safe water or improved sanitation. In the case of sanitation, 1.5 billion people in those two countries do without. Among regions, though, Africa is worst off. The entire sub-Saharan part of that continent today is only somewhat ahead of the United States of 1900.
In that year, 42 percent of Americans had access to public water and 29 percent to sewage systems. Among Africans in 2002, 58 percent had access to improved water (only 16 percent with household connections), and 36 percent had improved sanitation.
Although clean water and toilets have many benefits, some are not entirely obvious.
Both improvements lead to better health, although how much each contributes has been hard to measure. That is because people's health is also affected by personal habits, methods of storing and cooking food, as well as by education and income.
Piped water reduces the incidence of typhoid fever -- an outcome seen both in contemporary studies and in historical analysis. In Philadelphia, for example, a study showed that as water filtration was brought to the city's six water districts between 1902 and 1909, typhoid mortality in each district fell. Between 1888 and 1912, deaths in German cities from that disease fell by 80 percent, with half of the decrease attributed to piped water.
But clean water by itself has relatively little effect on rates of other water-borne infections, such as childhood diarrhea. Those illnesses are mostly transmitted by the fecal contamination of food, dishes and hands. They reflect the amount of water a household has for washing and hygiene, not the quality of the water.
For that reason, bringing the source of water to the house or yard reduces the diarrhea rate by 44 percent, while water delivered to a public "standpipe" -- where someone must go with a water container -- reduces the rate only by 6 percent.
Improved sanitation cuts diarrhea incidence by a quarter to a third. Interventions that promote personal hygiene, such as hand washing, decrease it by 42 percent, according to a recent analysis of studies by Lorna Fewtrell of the University of Wales and Jack M. Colford of the University of California at Berkeley.
Traditional water-borne diseases, however, are not the only ones reduced by clean water and toilets.
Trachoma is a bacterial infection of the eyelid responsible for about 6 million cases of blindness worldwide. Better water and sanitation reduces trachoma rates by an average of 27 percent. Once-a-day face washing with a handful of water is one of the four chief interventions being pushed in an international effort to eliminate trachoma.
Curiously, health benefits are far down the list of reasons that people in poor countries give for wanting better water and sanitation services. Relief from the drudgery of carrying water long distances -- a chore borne almost entirely by women and girls -- is the chief benefit that people mention.
A 2002 UNICEF study of rural households in 23 sub-Saharan countries found that a quarter of them spent 30 minutes to an hour each day collecting and carrying water, and 19 percent spent an hour or more. With closer water comes greater self-esteem, less harassment of women, and better school attendance by girls -- three things spontaneously mentioned by people in Ethiopia, Ghana, Tanzania and India in a different study.
Toilets are similarly liberating. In many cultures, rural women venture out to urinate and defecate only at night.
In a study of 320 households in the West African nation of Benin, people were asked to rank the benefits of owning a latrine on a scale of 1 to 4. "Avoid discomforts of the bush" came in at 3.98. "Gain prestige from visitors" was 3.96. "Avoid snakes" was 3.85.
By David Brown
सदस्यता लें
संदेश (Atom)