Evaluation and acceptability of domestic water- purification techniques in rural areas
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Date
2006
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Publisher
CCSHAU
Abstract
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.