Indian Health Bureau is a not-for-profit organisation working towards improving the health status of people in India. To this end, the organisation is involved in spreading health awareness, bringing in positive belief and behaviour change in the society, and in helping people make the right health choices. Further, it not only helps patients identify and connect with medical experts and institutions, but also provides them logistical support.
Taking about the initiative, Programme Director Kumar Sushant, says “The novel coronavirus disease has left hundreds of businesses closed, and thousands of people jobless. Many people are finding it hard to make ends meet. There is no certainty that people will get their jobs back, and if at all they do, it is difficult to say when. It is therefore imperative that people learn and develop additional skills as early as possible, so that they can fall back upon other means of earning in case one doesn’t work out. The free RO water purifier repairing and servicing skill development programme is an attempt to encourage people to think and act in this direction.”
Other than repairing and servicing, the programme will also teach them how to assemble ROs and other water purifiers so that they are in a position to start their own businesses. “The market is big. India Water Purifier Market Outlook to FY’2025 reports suggests only about 12% people are using some kind of water purifiers purification system. Low cost options and awareness can encourage people to think about water purification. Water at many places is not very clean and people may need to adopt preventive measures to keep water-borne illnesses at bay,” says Sushant.
Also, it is imperative that people make the right choices. Often, people are known to install water purifiers without finding out if they actually need them. People should know that for every litre of pure water that an RO purifier produces, it discharges about three litres of waste water.
Accordingly, a single residential society of 2000 apartments with an average consumption of 30 litres of water per day per household wastes nearly 2 lac litres of water every day. It is easy to imagine how a large number of societies and households in a city put together might be wasting huge volumes of water every day, every month and every year. This may be playing a significant role in groundwater level depletion. Worryingly, ‘Fifth Minor Irrigation Census’ report states that the groundwater level in India has declined by 61 per cent between 2007 and 2017.
First, people should not waste this water but use it for washing, gardening and other purposes and second, they should install RO purifiers only if it is absolutely necessary i.e. in the event of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) of the tap (input) water being at least over 500 mg/L if we go by recent National Green Tribunal order that bans use of all RO purifiers, wherein TDS in the water is less than 500 mg/L of water. It merits mention here that not every household may need an RO purifier, even UF and/ or UV based water purifiers can do the trick. If the TDS is below 200, boiling of water is enough, aver experts. “The people who we are training will be encouraged to pass on this information to the general public”.
The training will be given both online and offline as the lockdown and restrictions relax further.
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