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
us
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
reply
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