Thursday 24 July 2014

           PRECIOUS WATER FLOWS LIKE MONEY OUT OF ATMs
-Water at the click of a button-

NEW DELHI: Despite being the national capital, several areas in Delhi don’t have access to clean, drinking water. Dependence on water tankers of Delhi Jal Board (DJB) has become a way of life for hundreds of residents in several areas that are either at tail end of distribution or are not at all connected to water supply lines.
 
Savda Ghevra – a dusty resettlement colony in North West Delhi – is a home to a new experiment in water distribution, the water ATMs. Residents of Savda Ghevra have 15 tall, cylindrical, concrete water dispensing, machines in their colony that run on power from solar panels. These machines have changed the way of life for many families.

Now, all they have to do is swipe their ATM card through one such machine and draw water at just 30 paise per litre. “Whenever I need drinking water, my 8 year old son takes the smart card and fills the bottle from the ATM,” says Geeta, s resident.

People carrying water bottles and buckets in on hand and the smart card in the other is a common sight in Savda Ghevra.
The ATMs have been installed by Sarvajal, an Ahmedabad - based social enterprise, in each partnership with DJB. Each ATM has a small screen, which shows details such as the amount of water withdrawn ad the balance amount in the card.

The card costs Rs.100, of which Rs.50 is one time fee. The card can be recharged with a minimum of Rs.50 at Sarvajal’s water purification plant in the colony, which services the ATMs. Nearly 1000 residents have got water ATM cards and the total consumption of water from all the 15 ATMs is roughly about 3000 litres each. Each water ATM holds a maximum of 500 litres.

“We are working with the community to make them understand the value of affordable drinking water,” says Sharma.


A step ahead to water safety…!

1 comment:

  1. Nice to read the article.Very informative and good to see new tech. advancement and good governance in Delhi in making people available to clean drinking water.
    member of the house

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