Smart cards for water

“What more could one ask for? We have a reliable source of drinking water, which is clean, safe and, most importantly, adequate,” remarks Rinki Shaw, 20, of No. 3, Kalikapur slum, located on the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass in Kolkata. She is among the many women in the area who have been using a smart card for around two years now to collect 10 litres of potable water every morning from an automatic water dispensing machine.

In fact, the slum dwellers of ward numbers 108 and 109 in Kolkata have gone high-tech with a vengeance.

They all expertly use their smart cards to collect their quota of free water from the various compact water dispensing machines, popularly known as water ATMs, installed in their neighbourhoods.

Despite living beside a huge pond, access to potable water was the biggest problem faced by the women of Kalikapur for the longest time. Most would wake up at the crack of dawn and rush to the nearest hand pump to queue up for their turn to fill drums and buckets, which they would then carry home. They faced immense mental and physical strain but bore it all because there was simply no other way.

Of course, there was no guarantee that they would return with water every time. Either the hand pump would run dry or the municipal public taps, installed few and far between, would get no supply.

There was also every chance that the stored water would get contaminated.

But their fortunes turned and, today, getting water is no longer the torturous chore it used to be. The women simply walk over to a water ATM at their convenience, and take home their share without worrying whether there would be any left.

So, where and how is the water supply maintained? The answer comes from another local woman, Kavita Pal.

“We are getting the water from a filtering plant that has been set up with the technical support of SAFE (South Asian Forum for Environment), a non-governmental science and environment organisation. There was a time when the women here would spend three to four hours daily collecting water. We could not take care of our children or do household chores with a free mind because collecting water was always the first priority. At least with the water machines and smart cards, we do not have to worry about securing our most basic right anymore. I am assured of safe water and my children do not fall ill frequently,” says Pal, who heads the joint liability group (JLG) that is in charge of the upkeep of the filtering plant.

The plant, built by SAFE in partnership with the people, is supported by HSBC’s Water Programme, which provided the initial funding and technical support for the sustainable model project.

“This is an ambitious model on water and sanitation. The success of this project has been quite visible in the lower-income localities,” says Amrita Chatterjee, director (communications and research), SAFE.

“It started off as a pilot project. The water is primarily taken from the nearby pond and filtered at the plant that has been built on community land. The water that cannot be purified is directed to the community toilets, which are, in turn, connected to a bio-gas plant that produces fuel for use in the community kitchens. Moreover, the filter plant runs on solar energy produced from the panels fitted on its roof,” she adds.

Over the last two years, the project has gradually attained self-sustainability. The room that houses the filtering plant has a huge solar grid that produces more than 10 KW of energy. The water is supplied through underground channels from the nearby pond.

Surface water from the pond is not used as people have inhibitions about drinking the dirty water that they use for cleaning and washing. The plant daily purifies about 10,000 litres of water, which the residents collect from the three dispensers installed in the slum. Though 10 litres come free, the residents can always buy more by topping up their smart cards with money.

The additional water is priced at a nominal 50 paise per litre.

It was a World Bank study that revealed an uncomfortable truth: poor quality drinking water was causing 21 per cent of diseases in India and creating a burden of around ₹300 crore for the government. This motivated SAFE to plan this project. India has been spending around ₹1.48 lakh crore every year since the 1990s on various water sanitation projects. Even so, the country ranks 120 in a UNDP survey of 123 nations on the ‘safe water index’.

The Kalikapur slum project has successfully demonstrated an effective system to address basic healthcare and sanitation issues. The key is to utilise renewable sources of energy like solar power and bio-gas, and catalyse the community into action. The project is currently being replicated in two other urban slums in Kolkata.

A happy Rina Jana sums up: “For us women it’s been a total win-win. These days, even men have gotten involved in doing what was considered only a woman’s work. With community ownership and participation, the onus of getting the work done is now shared. Men and women have understood the merits of working side by side.”

Women’s Feature Service

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