Household level assessment, participatory learning for rural water safety and security planning

Household water safety & security planning approaches as outlined in national rural drinking water programme guidelines were piloted using participatory methodologies in one block of West Bengal State in India. The assessment of water quality was done by collecting water samples from existing drinking water sources including from point of use and were analyzed for critical water quality parameters. The household survey was done through purposive random sampling method (10,094 households) in the study area. The result of the study indicates that the present water supply in the block is inadequate vis-a-vis the perceived demand of the consumer. More than two-thirds of the water sources are unsafe on one or multiple accounts. Very low level water safety awareness and poor hygienic practices are the realities. The study attempted to correlate the poor sanitation, water quality both at source and user end with disease burden.