For urbanites, the idea of water transportation consists of pipes, fittings and plumbing solutions.
But historically, many villages have been conserving and transporting water with traditional methods. When we think of Indian villages, we think of women carrying grades or pots above their heads. Villagers have to travel far to reach the source of water and then carry it back home. While we live in the comfort of easy water availability thanks to modern construction methods, a large number of village folk still don’t have access to clean water for drinking or purposes of sanitation.
According to government records from the 1980s, only 1% of India’s rural areas had access to safe and usable water. By 2013, this statistic became 30%, with the majority of rural India still surviving without direct access to safe drinking water. A WaterAid report states that an estimated 76 million people in India have no access to safe water supply. India is currently ranked amongst the world’s worst countries in the world where the highest number of people live without safe water resources.
Geographically speaking, we are not a water scarce country with having major rivers and an annual rainfall of 1170 millimetres. But failure to conserve water and prevent pollution of rivers combined with a large growing population has led to drying up of water resources. The Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation has data which suggests that 45,053 villages received access to piped water and handpumps by the end of 2016-17, but almost 19,000 villages across the country are still devoid of regular water supply, some even having to walk 15 km to fetch water manually.
Of the 76% of usable water resources India has, 87% is used in agriculture, 15% for industry and energy and 7% for domestic purposes. With adequate education, training and incentive-based programs for Panchayats and villagers plus campaigning for water conservation, recycling and rainwater harvesting at the grassroots level for both urban and rural areas, a shift towards water availability can take place. In fact, Monitor Deloitte estimates that the rural sanitation market in India is worth the US $25 billion.
At Spectra, we fully understand how water supply solutions are paramount for developing India, and we are creating premier plumbing systems comprising PVC pipe and fittings and uPVC fittings, to meet this ever-growing demand. We are also assisting Indian farmers better their harvest by providing quality irrigation solutions like PVC agricultural pipe and fittings along with a wide spectrum of product availability in different sizes and pressure classes to enable super-efficient transportation of water. To learn more about piping and water supply solutions from Spectra, Click here.
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