facing new kinds
of drinking water
problems with growing
dependence on groundwater and
changing landscapes of
agricultural and industrial
pollution. Beyond microbial problems of drinking water, problems like Fluorosis, Arsenicosis and nitrate contamination are threatening our drinking
water sources. These are complex
problems that interact with nutritional and healthcare issues – especially in
the child and maternal health context.
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| Water Quality Awareness session in a school |
These ‘new drinking
water problems’ that are emerging will play themselves out concurrently –
making them new public health problems of high complexity. The new drinking
water problems – such as is already
discovered in the
case of fluorosis,
a condition resulting from prolonged consumption of drinking water
contaminated by excessive fluoride
content – also tend to have strong nutrition, child and maternal health
linkages. The nexus between Water and Sanitation (watsan), Nutrition and Health
in this new context will be particularly critical. The solutions will need to
view and
address these as public
health problems rather
than merely watsan
problems.
While visiting affected
habitations in Kolar and Chikballapur districts helped us understand such
complexity associated with Fluorosis. I and my Colleague Shreyas S put down our
observations in the field which gave us an inspiration to develop a program for
Fluorosis Mitigation in affected districts in Karnataka. The basis of the
program is that Fluorosis is not a standalone problem, but a result of multiple
factors. Hence, a plan to mitigate Fluorosis should be integrated rather than
sectoral. Understanding the problem and evolving simple solutions, that the communities can
be empowered to
seek, adopt and
adapt will be vital. The Program is being conceived and developed during
the phase of the Fluoride Fellowship with our advisors, mentors and incubators-
Biome, The Fluoride Knowledge and Action Network (FKAN) and INREM Foundation,
which is the secretariat of FKAN.
we had applied with Wipro- one of the leading tech firm in the country. We are
glad to inform that we have won the Wipro Sustainability Seeding Fellowship 2017.
The Fellowship is for the duration of two years. This is our small step in
building the program. We are currently pitching the idea of the program with
other potential funders to support other components of the program.