Experiences with domestic defluoridation in India

During the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade 1980-1990 in India, there was a marked preference in rural drinking water supply programmes, to seek community based water treatment solutions, attached to handpumps where such problems existed. This was true for iron removal and defl uoridation. However, over the next few years most of these treatments systems became inoperative, primarily attributed to a lack of a sense of ownership by user communities, resulting in an attitude of indifference towards the operation and maintenance of these plants. It is also possible that the complexities of O&M by user communities, in the rural Indian socio-political context, had not been institutionally understood. Since 1990s there has been an increasing trend to seek household based water quality treatment solution within rural drinking water supply programmes in India. This paper summarises the experiences of UNICEF in India in tackling the problem of high fl uoride content in rural drinking water supply sources, using household-based defl uoridation fi lter using activated alumina. Since 1991, UNICEF supported the research work for development of the technology by the Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur. This resulted in pilot projects on Domestic Defl uoridation Units in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan during 1996-2002. Gradually a demand for these fi lters has grown and the private sector is gradually becoming interested. Perhaps this approach, addressing households specifi cally rather than the nebulous “community” in general, is ensuring the use of safer water to a greater degree.