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Subject: Family Resource Management × Author: Kuchhal, Chinu × End date: 2006 × Start date: 2006 × Type: Thesis ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Evaluation and acceptability of domestic water- purification techniques in rural areas
    (CCSHAU, 2006) Kuchhal, Chinu; Mehta, Manju
    Water is most abundant available resource on this planet, yet it is fast becoming the most scarce resource for human use. A large proportion of the world’s people do not have access to microbiologically safe sources of water for drinking and other purposes. The present investigation was carried out in Ludas and Bhojraj village of Hisar district of Haryana state with the following objectives: To study the drinking water related hygienic practices prevailing in rural households, to evaluate the efficacy of common domestic water purification techniques and study the acceptability of selected water purification technique. The work was carried out in 3 phases. In I phase the requisite information was collected from 120 rural respondents (60 from each village) through well developed pre tested interview schedule, efficacy of selected water purification was evaluated under laboratory conditions (phase II) and acceptability of Solar Water Disinfection technique (SODIS) was judged in phase III. The results of the study revealed that majority of the respondents (49.2%) were 20 to 35 years old, belonged to joint family (67.5%), with 6-10 members in their family (55.8%), belonged to middle caste (45.8%), were primary educated (37.5%), had farming as their main occupation (50.0%) and animal shed away from their houses (35.0%). Nearly one fourth of the households were without toilet and maximum distance between toilets and water sources was found up to 150 ft. only. Majority of respondents had medium mass media exposure (68.3%), problem of water stagnation in small quantity near their houses (56.7%) mainly due to improper disposal of household waste water in 86% cases. All the respondents used waterworks supplied water and stored drinking water in earthen pot. Regarding water related hygienic practices, knowledge level of respondents was found much higher than what they were practicing in actual. Diarrhoea was found most prevalent water related disease (68.3%) while typhoid as a least prevalent disease (14.2%). Sixty five respondents were using atleast one water purification technique. Among these maximum were boiling water only at the time of illness (82.1%), using muslin cloth to use stored water (44.4%), water purification tablets, alum, sedimentation and decantation was used for apparently uncleaned water (53.2%). Under laboratory experiment solar water disinfection (SODIS) was found to be best water purification technique as mean per cent reduction in coliforms count, E. coli and viable bacteria count was tremendous in SODIS treated water. Acceptability of SODIS was assessed after 30 days of use by the respondents. Maximum of the respondents revealed low symbolic adoption, willingness and change proneness (53.4%, 73.3% and 40.0% respectively), highly positive opinion (63.3%) and medium knowledge level and overall acceptability (56.7% and 66.7% respectively) towards SODIS technique. Although maximum of respondents were considering SODIS as a advantageous technique but ‘Water get heated’, ‘unable to meet requirement of whole family’, ‘don’t remove turbidity’, ‘require lot of time in purifying water’ were found as major constraints in adoption of SODIS technique.