Bala Vikasa’s initiative ends water woes – ToI – 18.5.11

Shiva Kumar Pinna | TNN

Warangal: Due to government’s failure to provide safe drinking water, the rural poor are increasingly depending on voluntary organisations for supply of safe potable water.
    In a unique initiative, Bala Vikasa social service society has established communityowned safe drinking water plants in several villages. More than 350 ROT (reverse osmosis technology) plants, established across the state, have been providing safe drinking water to the villagers. While 20% of the expenditure on the maintenance of the plants is being met by collecting nominal fee from the consumers, the remaining 80% is borne by Bala Vikasa society. Under the community water project, each family gets 20 litres of water at Rs 2 only.
    Shouri Reddy, administrator of Bala Vikasa, said in order to provide safe drinking water to the poor, they have adopted a fivestage filtration process that includes ROT. “We ensure removal of excessive fluoride content and harmful particles in water before supplying it to the villages,” he said. Already the rural poor in Guntur, Krishna, Kadapa, Kurnool and Prakasam districts have more than 30 community-owned projects.
    A total of 137 plants across Warangal, 80 at Karimnagar, 16 at Mahbubnagar and 24 at Nalgonda are supplying drinking water.