Success Stories

#7. Women empowerment – Female Sarpanch changing the state of water supply and health

“Pawan Guru Pani Pita Mata Dharat Mahat“

We attribute ‘water as the father’ in words of Gurbani, treating as the care-taker and the provider to all. Copiously contributing to this bequest is the Department of Water Supply and Sanitation, Punjab for the upliftment of the rural community especially in the realm of water to bring about all-round development.

Going one village at a time, DWSS has moved in Ludhiana in a village named Sudhar where the total population is 5226 and has about 1115 households. The village faced issues of water quality, availability and accessibility where the population relied heavily on taps, wells and hand pumps, etc for drinking water collection. These modes of water availability had quality issues resulting in incidence of various diseases amongst the village residents. The water supply was only available for 2 to 3 hours which resulted in the morning hours being invested for collection thereby wasting the early school or work hours.

This led and requested the Department of Water Supply & Sanitation to bring about changes for the drinking water supply. With the entrance of the DWSS, water tank was established in the village Sudhar increasing the water supply to 10 hours per day. DWSS has provided permissible quality drinking water supply to every household in lieu of regular online water bills. The GPWSC members collected regular bills from the village residents to run the accounting system with unhindered functioning of the water supply. The on-ground staff like the pump operators were trained to maintain the water supply so as to bring sustainability in the water supply system. The staff maintained hygienic and clean water tanks to evade any diseases that might blow up due to the collected water in the tanks. Social team of the Department put in extra efforts with regular awareness campaigns. All these collaborations have been done with dedicated participation of the village residents, GPWSC, committee members and the Department of Water Supply and Sanitation, Punjab.

The efforts of the team to involve participation from all walks has equally regarded women in the village leading to female dominant leadership of the village. This has immeasurably changed the state of water supply and health of people in the village.

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