Water security

In 2008 Arghyam embarked on a year-long programme to gather data about and raise awareness on several water and sanitation issues. These included water quality and quantity, how water was stored, access to water, open defecation and menstrual hygiene. We called the programme ASHWAS, for ‘A Survey of Household Water and Sanitation’, and it ran into 2009.

Poorly maintained infrastructure, lack of community participation and the inability to recover the maintenance fee from users were the main problems identified by the Gandhigram Trust in the project villages.