India and Clean Drinking Water
In rural areas, the primary source of drinking water is groundwater (85%). In urban areas, that number comes down to 48%. In some rural areas, there is this additional effort of travelling long distances to collect drinking water. It is estimated that only 50% of water in Indian households is worth drinking because of the significant dependence on groundwater. The primary contaminants are fluoride and arsenic.
Other than the significant health effects of contaminated water, there are some other adverse effects like children missing schools to collect drinking water for their families and teenage girls spending more than 40 minutes every day collecting water.
In urban areas as well, the water situation is not to the expected standards. In India, Delhi has the highest percentage of water filters, and that is 36%. In urban areas, 12% of urban India depends on bottled water for their water needs. For the best-case scenario combining these numbers, we get 48% of people drinking clean water. This still leaves 52% of people drinking unfiltered water, even in rural areas. A good quality non-electric water filter costs around 2000 rupees, which should be affordable for more than 80% of city dwellers. This leads me to conclude that the problem here is not money or the inability to buy water filters. The main problem is that people are not aware of the adverse effects of contaminated water or all the water born diseases that can be avoided by using simple filters.
If not vaccinated, dirty drinking water can lead to typhoid fever. We have to be aware that it is not just water; food made from contaminated water can also cause these diseases. The major disease caused by dirty water is Cholera. This disease is common in marginalised villages and has a high mortality rate of 10%. The common and non-threatening disease is dysentery. This disease is a form of intestinal infection. With symptoms like diarrhoea and stomach cramps, this disease can be prevented by taking simple steps like washing hands regularly and only eating fully cooked food and drinking lots of fluids.
All these diseases can be prevented, at least in urban areas, if people are aware of the benefits of clean drinking water. There have to be enormous investments in drinking water in rural areas, which will take some time to implement. In urban areas, change can be brought by running awareness campaigns. The campaigns in cities can include Tv commercials, Posters, government collaborating with private filter companies to provide filter demos in cities.
