From Kulwant Singh, UN-HABITAT, New Delhi

Posted 28 August 2007

Dear Members,

Under the Water for Asian Cities Programme, UN-HABITAT is working in four cities of Madhya Pradesh (Bhopal, Gwalior, Indore and Jabalpur) for improvement and expansion of urban water supply, sewerage and sanitation, water drainage and solid waste management. UN-HABITAT has set up a revolving fund for financing small community managed water and sanitation initiatives in the project towns of Madhya Pradesh. A set of guidelines for the revolving fund, duly endorsed by the State Government of Madhya Pradesh, have been developed for this purpose. The revolving funds are so far working quite satisfactorily.

From Bhawna Vajpai, The Loomba Trust, New Delhi

Posted 7 July 2008

I work for the UK based Loomba Trust, committed to upgrading and constructing water supply, sanitation and hygiene facilities in schools under its WASH initiatives. We aim to work in 1,000 schools across India (rural areas and small towns) in collaboration with state governments.

Original Query: V. Kurian Baby, Socio-Economic Unit Foundation (SEUF), Kerala

Posted: 3 August 2006

Reforms in water and sanitation (watsan) sector have by now become institutionalized through: (a) pilot testing of alternate service delivery models by donors and GoI in selected locations and subsequent scaling up into programmes such as Swajaldhara and TSC across the country; (b) evidences of community acceptance, confidence and credibility in genuine reforms (c) demonstrated willingness to pay for assured, reliable and quality water services demonstrated at community level and (d) vesting watsan governance as a desirable responsibility to PRIs.

From Vimala Ramachandran, ERU Consultants Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi

Posted 16 January 2009

I am Vimala Ramachandran working with the Educational Resource Unit at ERU Consultants Pvt. Ltd.

My colleagues - Bharat K. Patni and Nishi Mehrotra - and I are working on a field-based study to explore the inter-linkages between water, sanitation and school participation, with specific reference to adolescent girls. We are conducting this study for UNICEF Regional Office for South Asia and UNICEF India Office. We plan to commence our fieldwork in Uttar Pradesh in February 2009.

Original Query: Meeta Jaruhar, Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Jharkhand

Posted 30 August 2006

The Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Jharkhand is implementing the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC), of which Sanitation in Anganwadi Centres (AWCs) is an important component. As we all know, AWC is a centre where children below 6 years, Anganwadi workers and also sometime members of Mahila Mandal gathers. Therefore, to start appropriate sanitation behaviour we are planning to have toilet facilities in these centres.