Community is considered to be empowered, sensitized and concerned about their own development if there is a synergy between the resources available to them. The active participation of community in any development project certainly proves fruitful beyond the expectation as it confirms the sustainability of the project. An innovative concept of operation, maintenance and management of Swajaldhara scheme especially electricity supply management has been introduced by Abhinav.

Abhinav is implementing the project in 21 GP’s of Muzaffarnagar and 11 schemes are being implemented in district Bijnor. Under the operation, maintenance and management guidelines of Swajaldhara Operation, maintenance and management cost of the water supply schemes will have to be fully borne by the concerned community / user group / Village Water and Sanitation Committee / Panchayati Raj Institution. This would include recurring costs like salary of operators, electricity charges as well as cost of periodic repair and renewal. It would be imperative on the part of the Panchayati Raj Institution / community to have a full understanding and appreciation of the likely O&M costs of various technology options before they select the technology for their water supply scheme.

The process of availing electricity supply included several stages of form filling. After the consent of treasurer/VWSC a challan of 500 Rs. is made from the bank. After this, the applications for electricity connections are submitted.

Post submission of forms, the estimates are prepared by JE’s of electricity department. During inspections different aspects like origin and direction of line are considered. VWSC supported fully in this regard. 15% supervision charge is submitted by VWSC to electricity department.

Following inspection, as per standards of electricity department, VWSC purchased transformers (25 kVA) and other equipments from the authorized supplier. Moreover, the works related with installation of transformers were completed through certified contractor of electricity department.

After the installation of transformers is completed, the quality of electricity line was assessed by electricity safety department and certificate was issued by the organization for operating these lines. For this, a nominal fee was submitted to the department. This was done to avoid casualty at the site.

The line was handed over to electricity department with all the formalities and prescribed information. This was commendable as this task was accomplished within 2 – 3 days and it saved a lot of time. This has certainly set an emulating instance for all the VWSC’s of the State.

This makes the process an innovative one!
We know what matters most is the convergence of technology with social needs. We recognize that gap between demand and cycle can only be filled through smart implementation of technology. For this we bring about innovations supported by unique technology.

Conservation of water plants :
Water hyacinth (Jalkumbhi) acts as a very good purifier, but there is a fallacy about it that it spreads all across the water body and traps the oxygen, leaving no space for aquatic life. For this, we came up with the concept of controlled plantation of water hyacinth. In this controlled system, we planted water hyacinth in a net so that it does not get spread all over the pond. Thus, the pond gets its purifier. Besides this, we also planted other purifying plants like Qyara. With this, purified water becomes available for fisheries and cattle drinking.

This technology is a tool for sustaining ground water resources of the area as it increases the time period for which the ground water of certain can be used because it constantly recharges water.

Low cost water recharging :
We strongly advocate for water conservation. We continuously strive to ensure that every drop of water is conserved.
For this we have developed a low cost water recharging technology to conserve ground water through constructing water recharging shafts and pits.
This technology is very much economic and is being appreciated by the community where it has been implemented. A 500 sqm. recharge pit construction costs Rs. 30,000. This technology is being implemented successfully in big industries, grand banquet halls, schools and other institutional buildings. There is no provision of drainage of water in this technology.