Poor people do not deserve poor solution

[Music]

[Applause]

i want you to close your eyes

and imagine the situation where you are

living with your family in a small house

there is not enough space for everyone

and in front of which

there is a guitar where waste water is

flowing

now every day you wake up and sense that

fall smell of waste water

you see your kids are playing near that

area with their hands and legs covered

by dirty water

due to which many times they fall victim

of diseases

and you feel helpless that you can’t do

much about this situation

this is the true reality for many

families

living in urban slum and in majority of

rural areas of our nation

why larger cities have a better way of

managing the wastewater

by complex system of drainage lines and

treating wastewater

in rural area it is not feasible both

financially and technically

today i would like to share a story of a

village wadala of solapu district

this village has a population of around

5 300

with 950 household one day the local

serpent

along with the group of villagers came

to my office

and told me that there are frequent

scenes of fights

because of wastewater flowing through

the open guitars

causing stagnation near many houses and

no one is ready to clean these guitars

causing mosquitoes which in turn making

many families fall sick

many villagers are blaming me that i am

incompetent

in doing my work so what i can do

please help us he was feeling very

rejected

while i was listening to serpent i could

easily relate the frustration and

helplessness failed by him

i remember my childhood days in my small

village

growing up in poverty was nothing new to

living in such surroundings with waste

water flowing in open

was a common sight for us and majority

of health problems we faced

are linked with poor management of

wastewater

i remember during my childhood every

rainy season

i had episodes of diarrhea vomiting

sometimes fever

which made me sick at least for 10 to 15

days

in a season at that time i presume

living close to open gutters seeing it

every day

the fall smell of waste water and

falling ill was our fate

and we did not know any better solution

for that we accepted it as a part of

life

and not even thought it has a problem

while sarpanch was still waiting for my

i assured him do not worry i said

let me come there with my officers we

will inspect the village

and we’ll come with some solution before

coming to solapur

i was working as an assistant collector

in nander district

there in one village named tamburni

local serpent deal the same problem

by using simple low cost solution of

soap bead

during my tenure in nandir i had gone to

that village and studied the model

carefully

we had replicated similar structures in

my subdivision

where i was working i decided to

implement similar model in wadala

village

though i assured sir punch that it was

not easy task

when i went to the village along with my

officers many members were not believing

that this model will work

some said closing the existing guitar

will be stupidity

some said we don’t have problems with

the guitar we will use our funds for

roads or other works

but when i explain to them that if

everyone

will build soap beads all problems

related with

open gutter will go your children will

not fall ill

and most important your children will

not miss their school

when they heard about wellness of their

kids everyone agreed to give it a try

to combat the problem of water

stagnation we decided to make smoke pit

for

each of the 950 households after a month

sarpanch came to me and said happily

thanks to building smoke pits

all wastewater was now going underground

and for the first time

all villagers have seen a gutter free

and mosquito free life

it was all possible due to small smoke

beat sometimes we call it as a magic

beat

after that we decided to implement the

soak pit model

in all the villages which have open

drainage lines

so let me show you how it works

it is simple structure where we put

cement concrete tank

in a pit and then join the tank with a

pipe

which in turn draws water from the

kitchen and bathroom of the house

in cement tank there are four holes

which allow

waste water to seep into surrounding

soil

in the pit there are layers of blue

stones bricks and sands

which acts as a natural filter for water

and all organic dirt will be digested

by microbes within the peat so all

wastewater will go into the ground

and help in recharge the groundwater

table and the above surface will remain

clean and dry

now we needed to take this pilot to

large scale

for scaling up any project it requires

four things

political will public participation

availability of funds

and the willpower of administrator to

make sure

the idea actually comes in reality

so we started seeking support from the

local elective body

initially many heated debates delayed

the process

there were many doubts casted on the

feasibility of the project

who and how project will be funded what

if it fails in between

who will be held responsible but through

proper dialogue and discussion

we got all party support in the general

body meeting

in the initial phase our focus was of

course on villages

having most favorable condition soon

enough

the soap bits were showing its

impressive results

and local newspaper media channel

published them as

guitar mukti villages a small but

powerful idea

gained support and many villages came

forward to reciprocate the model

from one village with 950 household to

231 villages

with 6161 households

in one year of time we were now able to

impact 2 lakh 40

000 citizens without any special funds

from the government

in the entire process we had done

convergence of funds

from existing schemes the results were

astonishing

in improving the groundwater level in

most of the range shadow area of solar

pool district

due to 61 thousand soak pits total

ground water recharge

per day in a month and in a year four

thousand four hundred million liters

which approximately equal to water

stored

in a small dam like rankala in nandurbar

for construction of such a dam you need

to invest

minimum 30 crore rupees in addition

acquisition of 200 hectare land with the

time

and mechanism for its future maintenance

on the other side

for the soak bit model just public

participation

and convergence of available funds are

needed the immediate benefits we got due

to qatar mukhta village campaign

for the first time people saw neat and

clean surrounding

no longer false mill of wastewater no

more breeding ground for the mosquitoes

and in long term

it impacted on improving overall health

money save on medical treatment and most

important

increase in the groundwater level during

this entire campaign of guitar mode

village

i personally learn many things from the

spirit of rural people

first thing i learn if people come to

know simple and smart ways to handle the

problem

they accept it and they join hands

together

to improve their own living condition

second i learn

the most complex of problems usually

require simplest solutions

and as an administrator we should strive

to work with all stakeholders for

finding the solution

which will be beneficial for most and at

last i learned

as a public administrator we should not

force

cheap solutions on poor people rather i

will say

poor people do not deserve to get poor

solutions

they have every right to get simple but

smart solutions

thank you

you