Background

In India, roughly 600 million people are experiencing a high to extreme degree of water stress and nearly 70% of available water is contaminated, putting the country at the bottom of several global water-quality indices. Rapid urbanization and an absence of infrastructure are further evident in slum communities. For example, in Mumbai, it is estimated that 6.5 million people do not have access to safe, piped water, meaning they mostly consume unsafe water or acquire water from informal sources. Furthermore, in India, only about 28% of urban wastewater and sewage is treated properly; thus, untreated waste is further polluting already-stressed water supplies. In this context, slum-dwellers are also disproportionately affected by waterborne diseases, have extreme constraints on daily hygiene, and deal with unsafe water quality as part of their everyday lives. 

The situation is equally distressing in Delhi. In the capital, low-income residents in informal settlements already have severe barriers to accessing water, and climate change is only going to worsen this. During a historic heatwave in Delhi, slum residents were getting unpredictable water supplies twice a day, 515, and virtually nothing, via water trucks that exacerbated the chaos. The sanitary condition of some facets of Delhi's water supply was further exposed in studies that verified bacteriological contamination, comprising coliforms and E. coli, in tap water systems, such as in Janakpuri. In many instances, researchers traced the contamination to faulty pipeline connections.

These issues make it imperative to address the concerns of those informal residents of an urban space who already occupy the margins of society, and thereby, are the first victims of faulty water management. The project, ‘Drop by Drop Initiative’, was thus launched to not just address the concern of water contamination and availability, but also of water conservation.