Scaling up the water shops in Gujarat, India

Over the last 2 months we have been selecting villages in Gujarat interested to set up a water shop within their village boundaries. More than 20 villages were visited, community gatherings held and discussions on the existing water quality facilitated. This resulted in the selection of 10 new villages in the region north of Ahmedabad, the Palanpura area in which new water shops will be installed soon from now.

The quality of the water provided by the Government in these villages is poor, the water is often salty and polluted with fluoride and nitrates. Villages do not have no other option than to drink the water since no other options are available within their budget.

Together with our partners we will start delivering purified water in these villages using the water shop concept that we have developed with our partner Cordaid: Villagers will pay a small amount of money (about 0,006 euro/liter) for clean safe drinking water. Payment of the water is done using a debit card that is issued to individual households. The income generated with the water sales is used to pay our local employees taking care of the operations and maintenance. Another part of the  income is used to pay back the loan that is obtained to install the water shops initially.

The pictures next to this text give an indication of the villages and locations selected for scaling up the water shop activities.

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