Metro Water Board goes all out to deliver at the doorstep
Thursday, March 2, 2006
Brand new water tanks, one each for two streets, a community enterprise comprising households that decides on individual timings and equitable distribution of drinking water among themselves and the Hyderabad Metro Water Supply and Sewerage Board (HMWSSB) reaching out to an area where it has never gone before.
Notwithstanding the searing heat, the dusty urban sprawl of Ambedkar Nagar in Jawahar Nagar gram panchayat of Shamirpet mandal in Ranga Reddy district, came alive on Friday with women dressed in their finery fetching water from community water tanks, showing that rare order. No fisticuffs, no frayed tempers and women even standing in a queue to get those pails of water!
Child and Police Project and Heritage Livelihood Services Provider (HLSP) in association with HMWSSB launched the `Suraksha Dhara’ programme to ensure storage of water delivered by the water board and enable the community to manage its distribution. General Manager, Transmission Division, HMWSSB, K. Ravindranath, launched the programme.
Serving the poor
“The idea is to provide safe drinking water to the urban poor in areas where there is no network of piped supply,” HLSP executive trustee Nalini Gangadharan said. The programme would be implemented in slums where laying of infrastructure is expensive, technically unfeasible or not on the immediate agenda of HMWSSB.
“Apart from providing clean drinking water to the urban poor, it will also generate revenue to the water board, indicating that people are ready to pay provided the service is good.”
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