Regina Cassandra graced the Community Pure Water Annual Gala event

Mana entertainment

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Transcript

00:00I think I have thought, I don't think so.

03:01the real value of water anymore and this makes it comes to the second part of your question

03:08this makes it in my eyes a lot more difficult of getting people really engaged in this cause

03:16because we don't have it so if i would have a wish you know i i would like to start a more

03:23yeah deep discussion about what is the real value of water for all of us and i think this would

03:32resolve many topics which we currently can't so more awareness and engaging the youth and everyone

03:41else ma'am your work in cities like hyderabad has shown how quickly water scarcity can escalate

03:52even in urban settings why does access to safe drinking water remain such a persistent challenge

04:00despite decades of development efforts that's a very very good question because we often forget

04:10water and planning water in our urban settings or rural settings we look at development often does

04:18not include planning water or safeguarding the resources that we already have it could be natural

04:25resources or built resources from many years before because we stay we live in the deccan plateau

04:32and it is very very challenging as far as the geology is concerned and many other things today we depend

04:42heavily on river water that's transported to cities so even now the scarcity happens in more in the

04:49very urban and that where there is no municipal water supply so when you read scarcity in the papers it's

04:56typically no municipal water connections in in certain areas but this is concerning drinking water

05:04but today's water is uh 60 percent of water is from groundwater even though we get 585 mgd which is

05:13million gallons of liter to the city every day which can serve 1.4 to 1.5 crore of people which is our

05:22population as a city but 40 percent the government itself says 40 percent goes away in losses and non-revenue

05:30water and getting tapped in number of places and contaminated and when it reaches the city from

05:36different distribution points in the city the hmw centers the water is tested for contamination they

05:44treat it with a lot of chlorine and then it is distributed so first of all how much chlorine intake can

05:51you take every day this is a question to answer often we don't quantify our water or we don't understand the

05:58quality of water we get so after 40 percent losses this is only for the human population now we have

06:05manufacturing we have landscape and forests and all of this that needs water and also birds and

06:11biodiversity that needs water so 60 percent of this water even after you transport a huge amount of water

06:19to cities we still depend on our groundwater and 60 percent of that groundwater is what we drink today

06:26through our ro plants and such so what comes as groundwater is contaminated in multiple ways

06:34and the reason is us because 80 percent of the cities are concreted today

06:40even villages most of the roads are concreted today so there's no way for natural drainage of water

06:47and most often sewage and storm water there you know there's nothing called storm water channels

06:54we have only hybrid channels and which carry sewage as well as what rain water and these reach our

07:01aquifers and these are contaminated so that contaminated resource which can be a lake which can be a

07:09polluted well is connected to the entire ecosystem it is not just that water so when it reaches our

07:15ecosystem the people in the city draw water from ground and 60 percent of it is drinking water which we

07:23think is safe which is not quite safe so in the sense that water is invisible and our work is towards

07:32making it them visible today because what what is water needs to be understood so the so i would like to add

07:40what peter said awareness is missing even in the educated societies and how we understand water is

07:48something um that has to you know it has to have a paradigm shift today otherwise we will lose water

07:56even you and called it a water action decade from 2018 to 2028 we are in 2024 and actually do you see

08:06any one working for water and bringing it back and on a war footing which is what it's supposed to be

08:13because your action water action decade is what you do in this 10 years is the future of water in the

08:19next 60 years so we are only four years short so the time is short a lot of development is happening but

08:26not in the right direction of protecting our water ecosystems so a lot needs to be done in this space

08:33okay ravi sir cpw frames the water challenge as a health crisis first why is health the right lens for

08:46understanding the water problem in rural india and what do people often misunderstand about the connection

08:54between unsafe water and long-term illness thank you i just wanted to acknowledge that between jayish

09:05ranjangaru and now kalpana talking about the quality of the water and contamination so here's the

09:14fundamental problem we have we have had for many many decades the groundwater

09:23especially in the rural districts rural villages a large percentage has been contaminated over decades

09:34through pesticide usage and it has seeped into the so whenever we are you know drinking water from

09:45borewell as kalpana just said is highly highly toxic and the problem has not been solved i mean we have

09:55electricity for about 60 years now in most villages in india we have cell phones i think somebody told me

10:02that there are more cell phones in india than toilets so the challenge for us as i guess good citizens

10:12is how to solve the water issue so fundamentally we have to look at it as number one to start

10:23getting our rural families to drink good quality water so the only way we can do it in a mass scale way

10:31is to set up water purification centers in the rural communities as many as we can we need not one

10:40community pure water we probably need hundreds of them around the whole country to first start making

10:47sure that the families are drinking clean safe water right now many many programs have been announced

10:56across across the whole country country different states central the problem is the water cannot be

11:04free to the communities it has to have a cost element to it which the communities are actually prepared

11:12to pay for it so once we change that mindset i feel we will make progress so and we are doing our part

11:20in terms of the health here's the issue every community across this country faces waterborne diseases

11:31which it's recognized but not solved so for example two out of three hospitalizations

11:40are waterborne illnesses and then that contributes to lost work days for the adults and lost school days

11:48for the children so talking about you know how do you get the you know 2047 vision of getting people to

11:58improve or increase their productivity by 1.75 let's start with water because that's the number one culprit

12:06for for the entire communities so there is a direct relation that we have to tie it's not like

12:13see the thing is about prevention we cannot afford to be spending huge amounts of money after they're

12:21sick we need to make sure they don't get sick in the first place so it's an old wisdom that we have

12:28listened to for probably generations is an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure so that is what

12:36we are trying to fix across all rural communities so i feel there is a direct correlation between

12:46poor quality water and the families getting sick so and that's the number one cause you know that people

12:53don't understand it that's the i mean i'm not saying there's only cause but that's the number one cause

12:59so if we can solve that then dramatically there'll be improvements of quality of uh health for the

13:05communities it goes hand in hand with nutrition absolutely we see the nutrition there's midday meals

13:15and they want to but without good quality water the nutrition is useless you know we are not solving it's

13:22it's a partial solution so and the reason why it doesn't get solved is it's very difficult to solve

13:29water problem like like ma'am had said it's invisible we need to make it visible yeah and that's the key

13:35thing here because it's not an easy thing to say see delivering midday meal is a one-time event

13:42for the for whoever is delivering it whereas water has to be there in the community every day

13:49thank you sir ma'am you often speak about the invisible impacts of water scarcity especially on women

14:00children and low-income families what are the human costs of unsafe or inadequate water that remain hidden

14:08from the public eye so i'll take two examples in the city and a place where i live and a restoration

14:17that we undertook in the city so they serve as good examples because i have seen through

14:24the positives negatives and how we can create hope in such scenarios in 2016 kachibaoli and if you know

14:34that's the it corridor here and most of the communities there went through a serious drought kind of

14:42situation in summer and our colony of hundred homes because of the efforts we have done we had enough

14:50water through that time so we could see clearly you know many of them in those communities surrounding

14:59our homes many of them who are friends they used to talk to me and multiple challenges that they go

15:06through so women going to offices often they were like planning their time when they could get the

15:13water and how much in in flats in in i'm talking about l and t where they're looking at how else can

15:19i store four more buckets of water and i have a guest coming so how do i manage this because i get water once

15:26in three days so that was an eye opener to many and in the communities and many communities took up

15:35serious rainwater harvesting and started looking at what can be undone so that is one scenario where

15:41i saw children and women hit in a big way you know you know they started if you ask any family the women in

15:48the family know when you need a tanker when you need water how much of water is available in the house

15:54women sort of manage that so when there is a crisis with water clearly whether it's in the urban or rural

16:01women take that brunt of that so that that clearly affects their you know you're mentally shut down

16:08when there's no water in the house till the tanker arrives until there's water it's a shutdown literally

16:14so um and then at shutdown at work shutdown at home and you have to sort of do this crisis management

16:22and children are major stakeholders here so mothers always worry about children you know more than

16:29themselves so you see how it was a chain reaction and how it affected so many people just in that short

16:37two months you know though i feel very you know so much that such a drought should happen and people

16:44should not have a week of water to see all these people who waste drinking water you know to wash their

16:52cars you know you don't understand the value of river water it is food security for your next generations

17:00we're going to double up as a population in the next 20 25 years where is your water are you going

17:06to erase rivers are you going to today you're getting 585 mgd of water now your population doubles up and

17:13from 1.4 crores goes to 2.8 crores where is your water is a question we need to answer so becoming

17:20sustainable is very important another example is the bansilal pits tuple restoration which is one of

17:26the largest tuple restoration in an urban area so when we opened up a completely filled up dump yard

17:34of a well we found black water at 25 we literally gushed back gushed out it it was like it was a

17:41shucked aquifer and we opened up and it was black water and most of most of them thought it is sewage

17:47water that's connected actually there was no sewage it was the leachate that came from the garbage and

17:55wells and water water has a memory it goes to these points and it drains in the well right so every

18:02time there's a monsoon the water connects with this sewage because that's what is there and becomes black

18:09water and this used to go to 200 bore wells around it's like a ripple effect and all of this is an

18:17invisible story on top it's a dump yard but what's happening below that is a miserable it's like almost

18:24like most of us today i say we live in luxury slums luxury slums is the word i would like to see

18:32because that's what it is we don't we don't see what's uh water and water ecosystem we just think

18:40our apartment is clean and you only see the aesthetics on top but what's happening as water

18:46what's happening to your waste water what's drawn up as groundwater and how much of water that you

18:51protect and what is source sustainability can you bore well in your apartment provide you water for

18:57the next hundred years have you planned that because you get rain water at your doorstep literally

19:03what have you done with that water so we have excess water as a city we don't manage it women can manage

19:12that in smaller communities so i really want more women to come into this space i think you guys can

19:20manage within larger communities your streets that's what uh you know water and impact is not

19:28somebody's problem it's everybody's problem everybody needs no government can solve water issues

19:34going forward everyone needs to take responsibility as a citizen as a human being you need to put back

19:41water what water you consume can you make sure in your lifetime the water that you've consumed can you

19:47put it back as groundwater and improve the groundwater that should be your goal and i think uh many

19:54things will go away i mean we often think one person one family what can we do you can do a lot

20:01it is not somebody's problem it is everybody's problem i think that's that's what all of us should be

20:07paying attention to can i just add a comment here because i mean it touched me quite a bit

20:13you describing the terrible situations and i think what we have to get across is that we all should

20:20be ashamed because it's us the society who is creating this situation so i feel really bad about

20:28of being being not better in my past maybe there's no blaming anyone it's only taking onus i guess

20:36it's all on us it's like collectively we have created a disaster so collectively there is hope

20:42that we can pull it back collectively india has a large population so we have the power of numbers

20:50if all of them decide to do something right we can create a very big impact i mean we don't need

20:56others to solve our problem we can solve our own problems if anything i think all of us are already a

21:02little scared and educated at the same time right now okay ravi sir in the cpw villages we see improvements

21:13in education nutrition and livelihoods once safe water arrives why does water have such a powerful multiplier

21:23effect so great question um we don't naturally associate water with so many issues and benefits

21:37we can derive from so let's take for example something that we in urban areas most of us i would imagine

21:47uh i just want to see a show of hands how many of you worry about uh not having water at home in your

21:58homes here in the city that's a few that's few so let me tell you that's only a few let's say less than

22:06five percent of the of the audience and here on the stage in the villages you know how much time and

22:15anxiety the families face almost hundred percent the entire village is the moment they wake up

22:25the only challenge they have the major challenge they have power but water needs to get into the house

22:33and the women the kids mostly girls they're going and spending hours to either waiting in line or trying

22:42to figure out tanker shows up doesn't show up and that's to me is such a wasted effort so the point i

22:52want to continuously emphasize is we want to make sure that they don't even have to think that it's not

22:58there so that's something that we are solving it and solving it at scale so it's not a simple act of

23:07just acknowledging it but doing it and that's where our model has been much more successful than many

23:14many many many others that we have been doing it for a long time now let me just let me just build on

23:22what ravi was saying because i also saw that almost nobody raised the hand because we all live in cities

23:28where water is available all the time let me tell you something from my experience you should all be

23:35worried about it and very the reason is when i was still on the bmw port now i was one of my

23:43responsibility was mobility in big cities so i traveled around the world i talked about 20 25 mayors of

23:52big cities around the world and after we talked about the mobility topic i always ask them the same

23:58question at the end what are the three main concerns you have for your city and all of them with no

24:07exceptions one of the three was water supply so it's not that easy as we all think it's a huge challenge

24:16also for the cities so we just should not say only it's a rural thing it is becoming increasingly a problem

24:24also for big cities on the same lines as well around the world mr peter many water initiatives fail to last

24:40systems break down funding dries up or communities lose trust

24:45from your experience what differentiates solutions that endure from those that don't

24:55i think the the biggest difference sits right next to me you know no i i mean it honestly you need

25:04a kind of family engagement behind the whole thing so when we met you know i i could feel that this

25:13is not only a foundation created by ravi to make him feel good you know because many foundations are

25:20sometimes made like this so i immediately felt that this is a cause which really touches him this was the

25:29first emotional contact and the second was i really liked the approach because you know it's always easy

25:37to say i donate five thousand dollars and we put a machine in the school and i'm done tick in the box i did

25:45my thing and this is why many projects in the world are failing because we are doing exactly this you know

25:53they get money together they put some machines in a place and then they leave and they are proud that

26:00they did a big thing two three years later the machines are not working anymore they're not maintained

26:05and so on so this ravi's foundation you immediately explained it to me that this the donation comes a 10

26:15years maintenance program so the machines are regularly maintained i was this morning i had the pleasure

26:24to be taken to be taken by ravi and his wife ingrid to a village and to two schools and i saw the people

26:30really doing the work so it's not only on paper so there are humans responsible of doing this kind of

26:38work and this is the big difference to other projects i have seen around the world thanks peter

26:46just to emphasize something that i have observed over the years

26:50my journey in philanthropy is really second generation so my dad started his charitable foundation

26:59probably more almost maybe half a century ago 50 years my foundation has been around now close to 30

27:06years so you learn from your parents and grandparents uh certain things so the solutions

27:15should be permanent cannot be i have seen personally tens and tens of programs across all of the country

27:2799 percent failed around water for one simple reason they only drop the machine and leave what does the village

27:36do they have no clue after the motor burns out the membranes are gone and and the expectation for the

27:46people has been set like oh the government is going to deliver free water why should i pay for the water

27:52guess what within 12 to 18 months they have no water and they go back to drinking the same contaminated

28:00water from bore wells so we are addressing it at a root cause that all of our rural communities the villages

28:12they are super happy because every day every day for now some of them close to 15 years without fail

28:21they can they can i can guarantee you their trust community water is going to be there for the next 15 years

28:30that's the key thing how many villages have you all worked so we are about close getting close to 600

28:39villages but it's really a sad thing we have 600 000 villages in india can you imagine that's why i keep

28:48saying to people start more of these everywhere the governments want us to do it but the sad part is

28:55the government has to also understand that there has to be user fee being paid by the families at least

29:03to pay for the operator salary and for the maintenance of it because the moment the government announces

29:09people think it's free but let's face it nothing is free in this world you always pay for it

29:18thank you ma'am your work champions decentralized community driven solutions rainwater harvesting

29:27recharge structures and local stewardship how how does technology maintenance and community participation

29:35work together to create sustainable water systems so this is a very good question because often we look at

29:43restoration just like ravi just mentioned you have a machine fixed or you create you know probably a

29:50restoration of a well or lake and then you let it be it doesn't work it goes back to garbage it goes

29:58back to square one in in no time so our efforts as an ngo or as a social enterprise it's always been that

30:07whatever project we do how do we make it sustainable how do we make it long term so we um basically

30:14divided hyderabad into micro watersheds like there are nine hyderabad is made of nine watersheds we broke

30:20it down into 98 watersheds because i believe like in ancient times in a neighborhood the people in that

30:28neighborhood should manage that water for which we need to make water visible for them in that neighborhood so

30:34we are trying to create systems or templates around this so in a neighborhood you have wells you have

30:42lakes you have abandoned water bodies it could be heritage or not but wells and there is a lot of

30:51opportunity to do rainwater harvesting like i said 80 percent of our cities are concreted so you take any

30:58neighborhood 80 percent of it is concreted clean water happens within your community if you can

31:04capture your rooftop water that's clean water that can be reused and recharged the moment you let it out

31:11on the roads it's urban floods and then it mixes with sewage it's no good it's not even ethical to recharge

31:18that kind of water it's not good for mother earth and not good for you and you see this cycle of urban

31:25flooding every monsoon and drought every summer what does that mean it just means that we have enough

31:31water but we don't know how to manage it you know everyone thinks about rainwater harvesting when it's

31:38raining keep your buildings rain ready you know before the rain happens so it rain water harvesting is a

31:46year-round process it is not seasonal that's the that's the first thing that one has to understand

31:52and creating these templates of change where a well a lake creating a rain garden making parks

32:00as what we call sponge cities so we are trying to create these in our neighborhood and we want to

32:07create a model which is like all your waste water like we are working in kondapur one of the

32:13neighborhoods which is a three square kilometer stretch there is a well we have revived we've created a

32:19rain garden and we've revived a eight acre lake now the waste water that used to come to the lake is

32:25supporting two large parks this botanical park and palapita park about seven million liters of sewage

32:33which was a problem to the lake is now taking care of two lakes in the palapita park two lakes in the

32:40botanical gardens and supporting sixty acre and eighty acre of vegetation and we are getting excess

32:48treated water which comes back to the lake because i was not okay with just diverting sewage and making

32:55shifting the problem from point a to point b to point c that doesn't work in that certain neighborhood

33:01how it can be reused and so imagine a seven mld of sewage which was a problem is now taking care of two

33:11large parks in that neighborhood and we are getting excess treated water to the lake so we have treated

33:18water and rain water in this eight acre lake which was 25 years of toxic sewage in this lake and we've

33:27created an ecosystem where we have fifty thousand moral fish thriving in this lake we also want to

33:33create a livelihood model where fishermen and your food comes out of this lake so um so these are

33:40interesting templates uh when uh you know that i call it templates of change now i want to protect

33:47all six hundred step wells in telangana i cannot there used to be six thousand community wells in hyderabad

33:54uh just in hyderabad the britishers have mapped this and we have exact locations google locations of

34:02this most of them are filled up the point is that could have been the answer for our urban flooding

34:09something that was created few hundred years ago so how to rebuild this change so working on a city

34:17is very complex very layered and very difficult to work with the government but working in neighborhoods

34:23is easy because you can familiarize with that thought process so we are also creating eco centers in

34:30this lake restored that we have restored and we are not going to talk about india we are not talking

34:35going to talk about the state and city we're going to talk only about kondapur everything about air

34:41quality in kondapur everything about water quality in kondapur how in 25 years the blue and green

34:48has reduced 50 percent in that locality how can we rebuild it so this is the education we need so we

34:55are also connected to uh terek uh schools uh so this children are going to build that content for us

35:02along with us so that also builds awareness for them so i think these kind of uh thought processes i

35:09mean every question does not have the same answer today but looking at it in different tangents and how

35:15we can we are also going to create a cultural hub out of this lake we've created a nice floating uh

35:22you know a cantilever deck which can host events so sort of creating how about creating a neighborhood

35:28tourism out of these water bodies you know people will handle it why go kilometers to enjoy some lake

35:35why not in your own neighborhood so these are things and and awareness is not preaching so a lot of

35:42times i mean i spent 10 years in awareness uh regina but i couldn't change even one percent of people

35:48they're listening they're saying it's a great idea but they don't go back and do it so one day when i

35:54was toying with this idea awareness to action event when i changed that sheet around and i said okay

36:00action to awareness and that's what worked for me create an action and build awareness through that action

36:07so i i think that's the way that's my perspective of building change so by creating 20 powerful

36:15templates of how a well can be restored and kept sustainable for the next 50 years and creating

36:21an asset for the city i'm trying to answer how these 600 how 600 wells can take interesting knowledge

36:32from these 20 restorations and that's actually happening now many many communities and villages

36:38and towns have started taking up their step wells they ask for guidance and sequence of what they

36:43should do it's very interesting how it has created a movement in the last three years before three

36:49years no one even talked about a well or a restoration of a well today many towns are wanting

36:56the knowledge and taking it back and we are also trying to rebuild the cultural narratives of what

37:03is that city and what is that cultural narrative they have because once the well is gone even the

37:09rituals that used to happen i just want to end by saying one very interesting ritual where in hyderabad

37:17the marwadi families who used to live from old ancient times they were all traders and such right so

37:25they have this ritual with the well where a new young mother who delivers her baby

37:32mother's milk is offered to the well and they have this ritual where she takes her baby which is just

37:40few months old and she offers mother's milk to that step well saying i'm offering the essence of life to you

37:47can you give this essence of life forever to my child imagine i mean it just bought tears when i

37:53understood this ritual but that's not happening these days because there's no wells right so cultural

38:02connect and you know how our ancient you know our elders built these systems around water how wells

38:11were definitely temple tanks were built next to temples so while they are you know protecting temples they

38:18will also revere the water and energies and that provided community water and it will be protected so

38:26there were a lot of systems that they built i i believe that even if we get two percent knowledge

38:32from what our ancestors built we are the most futuristic country in the world today because we have

38:39such rich knowledge back in time so we have to go back to go forward that was very very moving ma'am

38:47honestly and i think you've inspired a lot of us not just with the awareness but with the action as well

38:54thank you um i would pose one last question to the three of you if the world could fix one aspect of

39:03water access in the next decade what would each of you choose and why

39:10peter why don't you happen like doing a monologue i can only choose one

39:16i think if i can only choose one i would say that the right of having access to clean water

39:27should be a law in every country around the world because it's a human right

39:37you want to go please so for me i think at ground level

39:42the one definitely as peter just had access to water is a human right and is the most dignified thing

39:54for every individual every family every community but achieving it is my purpose

40:04every village that we touch has to thrive

40:08in every aspect of the village life for the families education nutrition economic activity

40:20those are elements which bring together in a way that the village itself is a happy village

40:28so to me that so it's a starting point is water but ultimately we want a more holistic solutions

40:37for all communities that's my personal um focus and purpose

40:46i wish to bring um the sense of how important water is and i wish people understand that three

40:54minutes without air you die three days without water also you die it's that that important and how come

41:03we are chasing development and not even batting our eye leader taking a look at what is water for us i mean

41:10water is our future water was and many things that we see we saw a cape town happen right in front of our eyes

41:17how are we reacting to that how are we going to rebuild so i would say that all my life going forward i'm definitely going to look at

41:29what are those very innovative things how can we build this behavioral change around water and

41:35i think it's very important because it is life itself

41:39very good so it is our right and i think we need to be passionate about it i don't think it's a

41:48choice anymore yes thank you thank you ma'am thank you sir thank you regina

41:53wonderful thank you thank you all i know it's been a little patience for for all of us i guess but

42:01we got it done and feel free to come up and ask any specific questions because

42:06in the panel discussion what happens we focus only at a high level but if anything more detailed

42:12obviously visit our website or come up and ask any one of us and thank you that's something that

42:18by the way rainwater for i that's the i was exposed to this about almost 20 years ago i was i've traveled

42:27around india quite a bit with various organizations that i've been involved over the decades so i've been

42:37to many many parts of india and i see how rural communities struggle certainly water is always an issue

42:48for almost all communities but the other problem that they face is that they don't have the wherewithal

42:57on their own so i encourage all of you to do some voluntary work in any aspect of whatever you want to

43:07impart knowledge transfers and adopt a community somewhere a village or a school and just help what

43:16they need some of it is so basic it is not about money it's giving time my view is each one of us should

43:23give at least 10 percent of our time to something meaningful which it's not about giving is really

43:31deriving satisfaction that is the only thing that i like to say you have to derive satisfaction

43:38beyond obviously you know doing a work making money but you have to have derived the satisfaction from

43:44from voluntary work thank you we would like to take this opportunity since you work so much in the

43:50rural areas and talk about livelihoods and villages there are multiple multiple wells it's not just

43:57heritage wells but there are irrigation wells there are a lot of wells in the rural areas

44:01if we can restore these wells very simple innovative filtration systems charigaru is here and there are many

44:09people who are working with amazing innovations so if we can make well water give back drinking water

44:18which is very possible today because most of the wells actually don't have sewage uh yet you know most of

44:25our lakes are right here so if we can restore the wells in villages and provide drinking water and have

44:32innovative very simple methods to filter and give because this ro water that's supplied in villages by

44:39it is a great thing why not even pull up the well water and make a difference in people's life this will

44:47also improve their groundwater and you can make this also a drinking water resource so i would like to

44:53pitch in and work with you guys on that because i'm really wanting to rebuild ecosystems through wells and

45:01water and the purpose is very clear you can make it clean drinking water and believe me compared to

45:08any other water the well water is still one of the best waters that can be we can we can work on this

45:16idea no kalpana it's your suggestion is actually well received at our end what we do is whenever we come

45:25up with some newer idea we pilot it we we take like five villages or ten villages who are accepting of new

45:34new things then you observe what are the issues around it and then we roll it out the first hundred villages

45:47actually took us seven years because we were learning also and lots of challenges and issues but the

45:56following 500 we we could do it now we can do 5000 in less time than what we did for that so we always do

46:06a pilot and really test it out in that we are about scale my personal belief at least from my perspective

46:14is you know i always say this i know my wife is going to laugh i only dig an inch wide but i go 10 miles deep

46:23i don't go 10 miles wide and dig one inch deep in anything i do it's always been my philosophy since

46:31i was age 18 so i won't give up my age right now but i can tell you i've done few thank you the thing

46:41is people will hold on to their wells if they look at it as drinking water sources today right absolutely

46:47they will hold on to it and people will build that behavior change will happen like autopilot so yeah

46:54and it should be for the community right absolutely so that's an important element

47:00if there's anyone in the audience who would like to ask any questions yes please

47:05good evening thank you very much you people have given a lot of insights on water i also work on a

47:17wastewater treatment using phytoremediation for a company called shubra biotech and see my question

47:24is like first of all we also need to reduce wastage i feel that lot of people waste water so there is a

47:31government norm of 135 liters per person but i think we should reduce that norm as well because i

47:38see a lot of people taking 100 200 liters of shower i think we have to we have to respect water today we

47:46don't respect water because we feel it's abandoned it's available free and we are actually we have

47:53abundant water in rivers that goes into the ocean 90 percent of the water goes there and second thing

47:59what we are staring at is we are going to wait till the glaciers are going to completely erode once

48:05the glaciers are going to go all our rivers are going to get dry so i think we have to create this

48:09awareness how to reduce water usage reuse recycle and reduce this should be our mantra so i want the

48:16panelists to answer how we can address this how we can create this awareness among the public and

48:23uh and uh and help help everybody to save the water

48:32awareness we've done for uh years and years this is not going to work a one drought will teach you

48:39everything that you want to do with water that's the behavior change and when you have lesser water and

48:45i feel we are paying very less for water water is much much much more valuable the government spends 48

48:51rupees per liter and it's selling you at 11 or 14 rupees i mean it may be due to political reasons

48:57whatever reasons the moment the value for water and why are we giving 20 000 liters free for uh

49:04communities that are they really can pay i mean why are we giving free water so the point is the moment

49:11we build value for the water see the power bills went up everyone went solar the water bills goes up then

49:19everyone will do the right things for water chase water harvesting look at how to reuse redo so i think

49:27that's what it is tanker is very easy to buy and you get free water and municipal water there are many

49:33apartments who proudly say that we only run on municipal water municipal water is river water it's food

49:40security for tomorrow and you have no right to use river water the way you want to it's only for

49:45drinking but you use it for everything else so the awareness has to come in different levels i mean

49:51it it's it's an individual's responsibility i believe first act as an individual become responsible as a

49:59family become responsible as a community become responsible as a city become responsible as a state

50:05and then it goes to the nation the starting point is individual what what are you making what are what are

50:13the changes you will do tomorrow not or today to reduce your consumption the the action starts there

50:22i think kalpana's point is actually talking about economics of water world over

50:29people pay for water it's not free so this whole concept of free water is itself totally wrong

50:40the government and the society and all the communities have to recognize that once you start

50:49charging for water and i'm not saying you have to charge exorbitant amounts sufficient so that we can

50:56deal with it in the more responsible way that automatically what happens is the moment somebody's paying for it

51:03believe me they will reduce the consumption automatically even if you say you can save 10 percent or 20 percent

51:13that's still good enough but the behavioral change comes from cost it has to cost something to everyone

51:23believe me our you know when we supply

51:28purified water we charge it's not free the equipment we we get it is donated or whatever and but for the maintenance

51:39people are paying they're happy to pay you know how much they spend a whole month a family of four around 60

51:46rupees and that's nothing for them they can afford it and they are happy to pay for it they even probably

51:54will pay for 100 but we want to make sure that it's sufficient enough and they they value it so i

52:00believe every citizen you know can afford to pay for water i i would like to add on your point of adult

52:12education i agree that doesn't work i i haven't seen one program around the world where you can educate

52:21adults to change behavior it's it seems to be impossible

52:26but what would help in my eyes is that if we would push more the education in school

52:33you know i mean it starts now how important nutrition is and i think we have to work more in this area

52:40how valuable and how important water is with the smaller kids and then they start to teach their parents

52:47uh this works better than the other way around in these cases and regarding the the costs i can tell

52:56you from my own experience uh half of a year i i live in in southern spain it never rains in southern spain

53:05so we have a huge water issue and they started with adult education for many many years telling people

53:13you cannot waste so much water and so on and so on nothing changed so since three years they increased

53:21the price of water quite substantially and all of a sudden people are starting to worry about

53:29that we are wasting water which costs a lot of money this comes back to your first question in this

53:34evening we have to create that water has an extreme value and unfortunately for most people value is

53:43money it shouldn't be but that's how people function

53:52okay anyone else

53:56yes lady in the back

54:10thank you for such a wonderful discussion um i had a question that if

54:28yeah

54:37so if we want to

54:38So, my question was that if we want to contribute in terms of our time to this cause, how is

55:06it that we can go about it?

55:10That's the question I was waiting for all night long.

55:15I would say the number one thing is to reach us through our website and we'll figure out

55:22what area of interest that you would have and we always accept volunteers.

55:29Most of our leaders, I shouldn't say 100% of our leadership team is pro bono.

55:35Not just doing like one or two hours here and there.

55:39Some of us have been doing, not me, I'm not talking about myself, I'm talking about our

55:43friend Lakshmi here and Appu and then Pratiksha and several others.

55:51They dedicate a lot of their time and they've been doing it for years.

55:57So you have to have a passion around this and I'm sure we'll figure out a way to, you know,

56:06exploit your talents.

56:07All right.

56:08Thank you so much.

56:10Yeah.

56:11I think I completely agree with you because a lot of people once they see a success story,

56:15I get hundred calls like how do we volunteer with you, how do you… and these volunteers

56:19when we start, either they intern with us or they volunteer and within two, three months

56:26they are missing in action.

56:27So that's not how it works.

56:29You have to… it's very difficult to replicate passion but you can take inspiration and you

56:36can do something consistently, you know.

56:38then that volunteer meets purpose, you know, that… that's the kind of volunteership…

56:43I… I tell school children also, don't… don't come to us for certificates.

56:47We don't… we don't give certificates.

56:49We give you valuable wealth of educating you in the water world but we don't give you certificates.

56:57Don't work for… work for us because we give you a certificate.

57:01Maybe just a badge .

57:03So for starters, they can approach you all.

57:06For starters, they can approach you all.

57:08Absolutely, there is.

57:09They can come volunteer with… with your initiatives.

57:11And in turn, they can volunteer.

57:12I think that's good enough to start with.

57:14Yeah.

57:15Okay, I will close this panel discussion for today.

57:20Thank you Kalpana Ma'am, Mr. Ravi and Mr. Peter.

57:24Tonight reinforced a simple truth, safe water is not just a service,

57:29it is health, dignity, equity and generational progress.

57:34By solving water, we unlock the future for millions of families.

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