Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation Launches the Swachh Survekshan Grameen 2018 - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis.

Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation Launches the Swachh Survekshan Grameen 2018.

An Independent Survey to be Conducted in all Districts from 1st to 31st August.

The Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation launches the Swachh SurvekshanGrameen 2018 (SSG 2018) in the capital today. An independent survey agency will conduct the survey in all districts from 1st to 31stAugust 2018, and the results will be announced in the form of a ranking of all districts and states on the basis of quantitative and qualitative sanitation (Swachhata) parameters. The top performing states and districts are expected to be awarded on 2nd October 2018.

Speaking at the launch, Secretary, Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Shri Parameswaran Iyer, said that the objective of SSG 2018 is to undertake a ranking of states and districts on the basis of their performance attained on key quantitative and qualitative SBM-G parameters. In the process, through a countrywide communication campaign, rural communities will be engaged in the improvement of the sanitation and cleanliness of their surrounding areas, he added.
The Secretary further outlined the structure and process of the survey. As part of Swachh Survekshan Grameen 6,980 villages in 698 districts across India will be covered. Total 34,000 public places namely schools, anganwadis, public health centres, haat/bazaars/religious places in these villages will be visited for survey. Citizens’ feedback will be collected from over 50 lakh citizens on SBM related issues through direct interaction as well as online feedback.
During the process, 65% weightage has been assigned to the findings and outcome from the survey and 35% to the service level parameters to be obtained from the IMIS of the MDWS. The weights to different elements of the SSG would be as below:
• Direct Observation of sanitation in public places: 30%
• Citizen’s Feedback on sanitation parameters: 35%
• Service Level Progress on sanitation progress in the country as per SBMG- MIS: 35%
The audio-visual communication campaign, featuring prominent celebrities including Swachh Bharat ambassadors including Shri Amitabh Bachchan and Shri Sachin Tendulkar, was also launched at the event. Also, the SSG 2018 logo and the SSG 2018 brochure detailing essential facts about the initiative was also released.
Responding to questions from the media at the launch, the Secretary also shared the progress figures of SBM(G) in rural India. Over 7.7 crore toilets have been built in rural India under the Swachh Bharat Mission (Grameen) since its launch in October 2014, with a usage of 93% as per an independent third-party survey conducted in 2017-18 across all States/UTs. Nearly 4 lakh villages, over 400 districts and 19 States and Union Territories have declared themselves free from open defecation.(Source: PIB)


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Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation Launches the Swachh Survekshan Grameen 2018.

Rajasthan ranks low on drinking water supply for villages, says Niti Aayog - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis.

Rajasthan ranks low on drinking water supply for villages, says Niti Aayog.

Over 90% of the country's brackish water and 50% of its fluoridated water is found in RajasthanWith only 44 per cent of its rural habitations fully covered by drinking water supply, Rajasthan ranks low in a recent Niti Aayog report.

The Niti Aayog has asked the state to improve the access rate and the quality of drinking water in rural habitations while lauding its efforts in surface water restoration and participatory irrigation.
The report, which includes a composite water management index, said there has been no improvement in water quality - in terms of contamination by arsenic and fluoride - in 2016-17 compared to the previous financial year.
Despite the challenges in the water-scarce state, the state government is working on various public welfare water projects, Public Health Engineering and Groundwater Minister Surendra Goyal told.
We will be spending close to Rs 200 billion on projects to make surface water available to the people in rural and urban areas, he said.
The minister said 90 per cent of the country's brackish water and 50 per cent of its fluoridated water is found in Rajasthan, so providing safe water was a time-consuming challenge.
Niti Aayog has appreciated Rajasthan's efforts in restoring 80 per cent of the irrigation potential of identified water bodies, largely through community-managed ponds and tanks.
Rajasthan has also improved its score on participatory irrigation and source restoration.
The report said it has emerged as a leader in participatory irrigation with 75 per cent of irrigated areas having water users' associations involved in operating the system. (Source: The Business Standard)


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Rajasthan ranks low on drinking water supply for villages, says Niti Aayog.

Scientists develop technology to recycle vaporised water from power plants for drinking needs - Pragnya IAS Academy - News Analysis.

Scientists develop technology to recycle vaporised water from power plants for drinking needs.

The MIT researchers, who had started improving the efficiency of fog collectors by using electric forces, ended up developing a system which could help recover water that was lost in plumes of cooling towers of power plants.

Scientists have developed a low-cost solution to harvest high-quality distilled water from cooling towers of power plants to meet the increasing drinking water demand across regions.
The findings by a team of engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, US, were reported in the journal Science Advances. The researchers, who had started improving the efficiency of fog collectors by using electric forces, ended up developing a system which could help recover water that was lost in plumes of cooling towers of power plants.
The new approach involves zapping the air that is rich in fog with a beam of electrically-charged particles, or ions. The water droplets become electrically charged and can be drawn towards a mesh of wires placed on their path. The droplets can then be drained into a container.
Capturing evaporated water is an established distillation process, and the new solution would help capture pure water, even if the cooling water was salty or contaminated. The water could then be piped to a city’s drinking water system, or used in processes that require pure water, such as in a power plant’s boilers.
The findings could solve drinking water problems across regions, given the fact that power plants are the largest industrial user of water, and are exceedingly contributing to water-stress.
In India, almost 90% of thermal power generation depends on freshwater, which is used for cooling of power plants. But, much of that water is lost as clouds of vapour, since the currently used systems to capture droplets are not very efficient.
With more than 1.1 billion people lacking access to potable water worldwide, the technology could potentially be used to develop a significant source of clean, safe drinking water for coastal cities, where seawater is used to cool local power plants, according to the research paper.
Researchers highlight that a typical 600-megawatt power plant, could capture 150 million gallons of water a year. “This represents 20-30% of the water lost from cooling towers,” said co-author and associate professor Kripa Varanasi from the MIT. “This can be a great solution to address the global water crisis.”
It could also have immense potential for India, where water scarcity is hampering electricity generation. According to a recent report by World Resources Institute (WRI), 40% of the country’s thermal power plants are located in areas facing high water stress and most of the existing plants could see increased level of water competition by 2030.
It also provides an effective way to provide water desalination services to power plants at a cost which would be one-third of building a new desalination plant. “It could offset the need for about 70% of new desalination plant installations in the next decade,” said Varanasi. (Source: Livemint)


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Scientists develop technology to recycle vaporised water from power plants for drinking needs.