“A drop of water is worth more than a sack of gold to a thirsty man.

Figure 1: Satellite image of Poriem village, Goa.[1]

It’s 8 AM in the morning and the day for Sarita, a 11-year-old school going child, has just started.
She is waiting for the water tanker to come in her locality, so that she can have her brunch and go to
school. Finally, at 8.30 AM, water tanker vehicle arrives and there is hullaballoo (commotion) all
over the village in pursuit of getting water from the tanker. Sarita ran towards the queue, holding a
10 liter Plastic water pot. She stands in the queue as her Grandmother arrives with other pots from
home. After standing in the queue for 30 minutes, she finally has her turn to fill the pot and smiles
with a sigh of relief for, Today as the vehicle was on time. Sarita is happy that she would be able to
reach her school on time.

This plight is not faced by Sarita’s family alone. There are hundreds of other residents who live in
Poriem village in Sattari block of North Goa, facing the same problem. Sattari Block is reeling under
the problem of water shortage with water mostly supplied on alternate days. Daily morning, villagers
have to stand in queue to get the bare minimum amount of water for their domestic needs. This
problem is neither seasonal nor it is new; villagers have been suffering from the problem of water
crisis since decades and are now accustomed to this way of living wherein they have to stand in long
queues, in order to get water from tankers. And when the tankers do not arrive, locals are compelled
to fetch water from springs and wells that are distanced far from their locality.
 It been a month since we
received the mail about the
Wipro Earthian Initiative
from our faculty at Goa
Institute of Management . We
came up with a team of four
, a team united by realization
and an urge to give back to
the society in whatever form
possible.

Goa is known for its beaches,

and when we came to know
about the water scarcity
problem in village Poriem it
left us dumbstruck. Our team
took up a study on the existing
water system in Poriem and
see if any value additions can
be done. The Sunday morning
meetings also serve a healthy
fitness regime to the group
Sarita making her way to the tanker for water . members as the visits to
Source: Clicked by Bibino Binu Varghese, GIM,Goa Poriem Village and nearby
waterbodies involve some
:
amount of light trekking, walking and manual labor.
It was indeed disheartening to know that in a state like Goa which has the highest Per capita Income
in the country and having an average of 325cm[2] of annual rainfall, have villagers who are
suffering from the problem of water crisis from decades as the village is located at the hilltop of
Chorla Ghats and the water holding capacity of the soil is very poor due to slant terrain and
permeable sandy soil. It is nearly impossible to construct a permanent well, a hand pump or a pond.
Moreover, rainwater harvesting is not practiced in the region. Only hope the villagers has are from
the concrete water tank made for supplying water to the households. It was in working conditions
10 years back but now it is non-operational due to leakage in the pipelines.

The water carrying capacity of all the rivers is rapidly going down due to silt deposition resulting
from heavy mining in the area. As per our initial conversation with the villagers, they said that the
motors installed downhill is not sufficient enough to pump water from River Valvanti to the hilltop.
Moreover, leakages in the line further reduces the pressure in the upstream water pipeline. So
ultimately there is no water reaching at the top of the tank and water supply project has been a big
failure for the local government body. To compensate that, the local government body has started
the supply of water from tankers on alternate days. The amount of water being supplied is neither
regular nor sufficient. It seems that several initiatives had been taken by the authorities previously

People waiting anxiously to fill their water buckets.

Source : Clicked by Naman Mittal, GIM, Goa
but in vain due to ineffective implementation of the techniques.
Figure 3: People filling water from the tankers facilitated by the government.
Villagers feel that the water supply system has collapsed leading them in significant hardships.
They have been holding Morchas and Rallies to highlight the problem to and compel the concerned
authorities to come to a solution to their woes. The head authorities always assure the villagers
that their water woes would be sorted, but no change has happened in the water supply till date.

During one of the visits to the Village Sarpanch, Mr. Balkrishna Mahashekhar, said that he had
asked the MLA about the water crisis but is not hopeful of any help from MLA office. They asked
for 2 tanks per day which has been denied by the senior authorities. In case of any emergency they
head to a stream locally called Jhara, which is 1.5 KM away from village and get water from there
for domestic purpose. This water is neither drinkable nor clean. As said by one of the villagers,
“government is not ready to invest in this area because the population of the village is less. They
say that for area development, voting population should be more.”
But what about the pain through which villagers go every day. Who will account for the children
who are missing schools because of this daily plight? Who will see to the pain when there is no
clean water to drink? All
these questions are
unanswerable. Seeing
children carrying heavy
weights of filled water pots
on their head is heart
wrenching and at the same
time it’s a shame to the
mankind. In a world where
we are reaching out to the
moon and in a country where
Bullet Train is being
incorporated, seeing the
condition of this Goan
Empty containers waiting to be filled by water
village is utterly
Source : Clicked by Prerna Bajaj , GIM, Goa disappointing.

Water scarcity affects more

than 40 percent of people around the world, an alarming figure that is projected to increase with
the rise of global temperatures as a result of climate change. Although 2.1 billion people have
gained access to improved water sanitation since 1990, dwindling supplies of safe drinking water
is a major problem impacting every continent.

United Nations has also raised the same issue and working on “to ensure availability and
sustainable development of water and sanitation for all” and also many organizations are working
on it and is registered as a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6.
Our Team went through all the perspectives of SDG 6 and tried to get the measures to improve the
existing system with our knowledge and study. People of this village are so acquainted with the
current situation of water problem that they don’t even try for a change. Standing in long queue
for getting water has been their daily routine. So, we thought of suggesting them the idea of Rain
water harvesting. It wasn’t surprising to know that the villagers were unaware about the rain water
harvesting technique. We informed them about rainwater harvesting tanks where the water from
rainfall can be collected and can be used for the domestic purposes. This tank will be strategically
located in areas from where 3 to 4 families can be befitted. We also suggested to have a small rain
harvesting tank in each home. The water which will be stored in tank can be processed by the sand
gravel filters followed by charcoal filter to make the water drinkable. Villagers were excited to
hear about it and told us that they will talk with the authorities to incorporate the Rain Water
Harvesting technique in their village.
Ismail Serageldin, World Bank Vice President for Environmental Affairs said “The wars of the twenty-
first century will be fought over water.” [4]

Water scarcity affects more than average villages in Goa. Many villages have gained access to
improved drinking water sources, but others are still without.

Everyday nearly 1000 children die globally due to preventable water and sanitation related
diseases. 80% of wastewater from human activities is discharged into waterways without any
pollution removal.

We talked to the people of the village about water harvesting techniques like constructing an
underground tank and storing the rainwater as this is a region of high rainfall. We also tried talking
and making them aware about other sources of saving water and reducing wastage. If the ideas and
suggestions given by our Team are incorporated properly, it will improve the conditions of village
drastically. Hope it will improve the condition of Sarita so that she could go to her school on time,
as this would benefit Sarita whose life could change for, she would be able to focus on her studies
rather than running around for water.
We do hope that this would serve as a solution and eliminate the plight of people like Sarita.
References:
[1]https://www.google.com/maps/place/Poriem,+Goa/@15.5864994,74.0092054,14z/data=!3m1
!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x3bbf97f4de783b2f:0xf93926ca28e68375!8m2!3d15.5849684!4d74.0270745
[2] https://www.travelogyindia.com/goa/weather-in-goa.html
[3] http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-development-goals/goal-6-clean-
water-and-sanitation.html

[4]https://www2.canneslions.com/resources/downloads/Young%20Lions%20Media/2011/Austria.pdf

VIDEO-2018-10-31-01-08-33.mp4