3.4.5 Renewable Energy for Pumping Domestic Water Supplies Groundwater, the main source of rural water supplies, has to be lifted up and conveyed to the point of use. Government water supply agencies prefer to use electricity operated pumps to lift groundwater. With electricity supply in rural areas being often unreliable, communities and individual households choose diesel-operated pumps to lift groundwater mainly for agricultural purposes. In this regard, a shift to renewable energy sources for rural water supply systems needs to be encouraged. The economic viability of these systems will be a critical factor in their adoption. Some of the successful renewable based water supply systems include: the pilot project of Sahjeevan Trust demonstrating a solar powered submersible pump lifting water and transported it over a distance of 1.8 Km to a water tank in the village. Many hydrams have been installed in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand with mixed results66. Hydram schemes that are community owned show better physical and socio-economic benefits.
3.5 Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan The67 Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) launched in 1999, has been now renamed as Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA) with the objective “to accelerate the sanitation coverage in the rural areas so as to comprehensively cover the rural community through renewed strategies and saturation approach”. The NBA aims to promote rural well-being through environmentally safe disposal and utilization of rural household wastes, and therefore, is inherently a green programme. The NBA can improve the rural environment by converting rural household wastes to organic fertilizer, fuel and water for irrigation and groundwater recharge (refer to the table below). In the12th Five-Year Plan Approach paper, it is proposed to implement all the basic components – safe disposal of human and livestock excreta and complete solid and liquid waste management – in all Panchayats in a phased manner. The case of Aasgaon village located in a semi-arid area illustrates that this can be done with convergence of funds from different rural development schemes (see case study 6 – Asagaon becomes Greengaon). Green outcomes of NBA Rural Household Wastes Treatment
Human excreta Animal excreta Urine Kitchen wastes Domestic grey water Inorganic wastes
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Output
Green Outcomes
Eco-san
Fertilizer
Biogas plant
Fuel + Fertilizer
Biogas plant
Fuel + Fertilizer
Improved soil fertility Reduced pressure on forests for fuelwood; improved soil fertility Reduced pressure on forests for fuelwood; improved soil fertility Improved soil fertility Improved soil fertility Improved soil fertility
Fertilizer Fertilizer Large scale treatment Fertilizer Composting Fertilizer Irrigation water, Irrigate kitchen groundwater Sustenance of local water bodies garden & DEWATS recharge Segregation and Reduced non bioCleaner environment recycling degradable waste
Hydrams use the kinetic energy of water falling from a small height to lift a fraction of that water to a much greater height. In this way, water from a spring or stream in a valley can be pumped to a village at a higher elevation. It operates automatically and continuously with no other external energy source. Renewable energy and a single moving part reduce its operational costs to a minimum. Hydrams are simple to operate and maintain. This section is based on the chapter on ‘Greening NBA’ by Nitya Jacob in volume 2 of this report.
Greening Rural Development in India 23