Thank you!

Our trip is now over. Tony, Fred and Mark survived the 18 hour flight back to Minneapolis and are now enjoying temperatures in the low 70's. Brian left Monday night for his trip to Uganda. And Karthik is staying on for a few days with family. Looking back on our trip, we have made a lot of progress to help our plan of a sustainable water system for the slums of Mumbai to become reality. This progress, however, would not have been possible without the tireless efforts of our counterparts in IIT Bombay, IIT Bombay professors and staff, the Acara Institute, and support from Mr. Anand Jugtap at the BMC. They provided the invaluable contacts, logistical support, and field support that made this trip such a huge succes. We would also like to send our gratitude to everyone back in Minnesota and at the University of Minnesota who helped us refine our ideas and get us in shape. Without the rigor of the competition, our plan would not have been received.

In the coming months ReachOut hopes to start building itself into an organization by generating the same institutional and financial support here in Minnesota that we were able to create in Mumbai. We look forward to working with anyone interested in furthering our goal of providing sustainable water solutions to Mumbai. Thats all for now. Thanks for reading.

--ReachOut Water Solutions

Community / IIT Wrap Up Meeting

On our last day in Mumbai, IIT Bombay, Acara and ReachOut hosted a wrap-up meeting with leaders from the community based organizations we had visited, students and professors from IIT Bombay, and members of the BMC. We talked about the plan we had come to Mumbai with, the things we had learned during our visits to the slums and conversations with CBOs and community members, and how we are going to be moving forward after this visit. We then got into conversations with the community members about their water problems and how they would see a community based water solution better working for them. There were some strong opinions from a variety of members of the discussion, but ultimately, it was a constructive conversation. We went away feeling positive and confident that we will be able to work within many of these communities to bring about a more efficient, better maintained, and cleaner water supply system.

Rainwater Harvesting Installation

Sunday started out at 5:30 in the morning with a walk up the hill on the backside of IIT Bombay campus led by our teammate Vivek. After about an hour walk capped off with a semi treacherous hillside ascent, we were rewarded with stunning views of the campus and surrounding city. Thankfully, by starting early, we beat the heat that has continued unabated throughout our stay here. Everyone is saying that the monsoons will start any day and take away the heat and humidity, this, however, has not yet happened.

Afterwards, Acara and ReachOut met with a vice president from ICIC bank, India's largest private banking firm. He worked to impliment the ATM in India and was interested in helping both Acara and ReachOut further their aims in India. It was a productive meeting and we hope to continue contact.

During the middle of the day we took our final trip into the slums to visit a rain water harvesting / groundwater recharge system very similar to that which was proposed by the U of MN Acara Challenge team WaterLink. We met with the CBO in charge of maintenance of the installation. Basically, the system collects rainwater from one large roof that was installed over the feastival grounds in the middle of the community. The water is collected in gutters and transported into a well. The well is constructed using stones in a range of grain sizes, charcoal, and lime to create a type of activated water filter. There is a hand pump on the inside of the well which the community uses to draw up water. In this way, they were able to provide disease free water to suppliment the communities water supply. Even though it had been nearly 9 months since the last monsoon, water was produced from the well after only a few pumps. We were very impressed by the system.



In the evening, we had the pleasure of being invited over to Neel's house (from the U of MN team WaterLink). Neel ordered a huge bowl of chicken biryani from a local vendor and we enjoyed a variety of side dishes prepared by his mother. We also were joined by two of Neel's highschool friends. After a very satisfying meal, we watched some cricket and took a taxi ride back to our dorm at IIT.

Road Trip!

After a busy week of meetings and field research, we decided to play the tourists again and take a trip outside of Mumbai and see some of the other sights the countryside has to offer. We that in mind, we packed up our car and headed for the hills with our favorite new driver. We headed to the mountain town of Lonavla near Mumbai known for its stunning vistas of the surrounding countryside and its chikki (an indian desert made of toffee, nuts, and sugar).

The drive up was mostly uneventful. It took about 2 hours to reach the town. When we got there, it was not exactly the peaceful mountain scene we had imagined. It was a busy town with crowded streets and about 30 chikki stores. We went into the busiest one and were given a variety of chikki samples. After making a few purchases, we had some lunch and drove out of town to the local hill station.

A hill station is more or less a place to go to look out over the surrounding countryside. It was very peaceful and refreshing at the hill station. The views were stunning and there was a nice cool wind blowing. It was the first time in two weeks that we had felt comfortable outside. We walked along the mountainside, took pictures and generally soaked up the amazing views.

On the way back, our driver decided to make it a bit exciting for us. There is nothing like trying to pass trucks going around a blind turn on a mountain switchback to really get the blood pumping. Thankfully we made it back with only a minor rear-ending of one car, which, according to our driver, is not really considered an accident at all in India.

Catching Up

Today was a low key day, but really gave us a chance to look back and reflect upon what this trip has really meant to us. We spent the morning scanning through our pictures and notes to put together our presentation. In doing so, we feel very fortunate to be given this opportunity. In tackling this problem from the start there is the inherent feeling that this is just too complex of an issue to solve. It is in insolvable problems that great opportunities present themselves. Visiting these seven slums we have seen the heterogeneity embedded in each one with its own unique social and physical conditions. The severity of their water issues vary as well, but the common underlying theme is the people who live there. In talking with them over the trip, we have seen the strength they have within their communities. Tapping into this opportunity and working with them is the key to solving these issues.

As the evening rolled around we met up with students from the UC Berkeley group Haath Mein Sehat (Health In Hand) over dinner to share what we have been doing. Their organization, which has been running for several years, has been focusing on a number of issues in hygiene. They have developed many ties with students from universities all over Mumbai. Their primary objective is to work with these students to volunteer in the slum communities to help residents realize the importance and benefits of hygiene in both water and sanitation. Eleven Berkeley students will be spending the next 3 months here Mumbai working to further their program and helping these communities.

IIT Bombay Acara Challenge Discussions

Thursday the ReachOut team and the Acara Challenge met with faculty from IIT Bombay to discuss how the course would function in next years Acara Challenge at IIT. Neel from our class at the U of M who grew up in Mumbai was able to join us again for the discussion, and we were able to make significant progress towards formalizing a class here. We also discussed how the Acara Challenge had benefited us personally. The consensus was that this challenge helped us realize and utilize different skill sets to the ones we had trained for in our fields of study. These skill sets, we felt, are highly valuable when tackling real world challenges and are not part of conventional university training. The faculty at IIT Bombay shared similar concerns about the lack of application of learning in their curriculum and expressed great interest in seeing the challenge expanded within their institution. It was a successful meeting to say the least.

In the evening, the ReachOut team, accompanied by Neel, went to the Juhu beach in northwest Mumbai to sample some of its famous street food vendors and had a long walk along the seaside at night (pictured below).

Community-based Water Initiatives

Today was by far, the most interesting day we have spent in the city. With Mr.Anand Jagtap, we visited some slums and facilities that gave us deep insights into the workings of the water supply system in Mumbai, and succesful community strategies that adapt and make provisions for drinking water.

The first slum we visited had managed their unique condition of being located on a steep hill, with limited access to municipal pipelines, by establishing a series of water tanks and distribution pipes along the slope (photo right). Each of these tanks (1,000-4,000 liters each) collected water from an individual municipal connection with each connection/tank serving a group of 10-15 families (50-75 people) by distributing the water to a single community tap located uphill within the community. At the base of each tank was a pump to force the water up the line. This was the first community-based initiative we encountered in Mumbai that collectively undertook the collection, storage and distribution of water. During our visit, men were cleaning the open sewage drains of garbage, which was also organized by the CBO. Following the visit to the slum and meeting with the leader of the community-based organization who helps to organize the local infrastructure, we visited the Councillor of the ward, Clive Dias, an elected official from the city ward in which the slum we visited is located. It was interesting to see from his perspective the problems in the slums and how community-based solutions could function successfully within more slum communities.

The next slum we visited could be considered a model slum, where strong comunitity initiative, adequate political and institutional support and the required funding came together to create exemplary water supply and sanitation facilities for a slum in one of the more secluded and hillier parts of the city (which made for a great view as seen in the second photo). This was certainly the most amazing slum visit to date. During the visit, we met with the leaders of several CBOs as well as the elected official for these communities (third photo). We spent several hours meeting with the community leaders and toured one of the communities to learn how their water system functioned.

Organized into groups of 6,000 residents each, these communities had built communal tanks (200,000 liters each, one of which was being constructed during the visit!!) that stored water from the BMC line, which in turn was pumped to the top of the hill in one main line and then distributed to taps through 6 main lines that split into smaller lines as they made their way through the community. The pipes and were carefully located to ensure an even distribution throughout the community. Each area of the community received 2 hours of water per day (which community controlled) with approximately 150 liters of water per family. In addition to the incredible self-designed and constructed water infrastructure, the community had functioning sewage drains under the very clean sidewalks. The entire area of 25,000 residents share 21 Slum Sanitation Program buildings installed in cooperation with the BMC, which 90% of the population pays for and uses every day. This community's pride and enthusiasm in their efforts was infectious, and to see such a successful community-based initiative was indeed a heartwarming experience!

To travel to this slum we drove on the BMC's private road flanked on both sides by miles of several 10' pipelines, which brought water to the city from the lakes beyond, the nearest being Vihar Lake. The massiveness and extent of these facilities gave us insight into the problem from the perspective of infrastructure systems . . . and brought forth questions and concerns, some of which were echoed by the city Councillor we had met with earlier. He attributed the problems of low water supply largely to the aging infrastructure system, compounded by poor maintenance and careless installation. Many of the large pipelines (as seen in photo right) were constructed by the British 100 years ago. Many of the smaller connecting community pipes are 25+ years old.

The problem of water supply, we realize as each day reveals a new layer, runs deep. But along the way, as on this day, we also come across some innovative solutions that open up new possibilites for exploration . . .

Photos: Left plan layout of the slum located in the CBO's office (they also had a scale model of the storage tank now under construction); center is photo during our tour with the community leaders and it shows a view of a central corridor in the slum through which the main pipe line runs up the hill; right is the person who controls the water distribution network explaining the system to Karthik and our team.

Collaboration

Tuesday was spent in a very productive day having collaborative meetings. Our morning meeting was between ReachOut Water Solutions, the Acara Institute, and members of the IIT Bombay facility including Dr. Anand B. Rao from the CTARA (Centre for Technology Alternatives for Rural Areas) group, Dr. Ravi Gudi, Dr. Sethi and students from our IIT Bombay counterpart class. This meeting was able to help the Acara Institute strengthen ties with IIT Bombay and helped begin to map out how the collaborative competition would work next year. CTARA is a very interesting research institution within IIT Bombay which engages students in research projects related to the technical needs of rural areas. ReachOut had the opportunity to present some of our early findings from our slum visits and discuss what impact our field visits had on the direction of our project and receive feedback and direction from the professors and students.

In the afternoon we had the pleasure of meeting with a Dr. A.S. Rao from the Government of India in the Department of Science and Technology, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. In this meeting their were also members of the IIT Bombay incubator group Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE). Both Dr. Rao and SINE were very interested in our program and were able to provide helpful and insightful feedback into some of the challenges we will be facing implementing a water program. However, both Dr. Rao and SINE offered their support as we move forward. This was very encouraging.

Back to Work in the Slums of Mumbai

Today we were back to work on the Slum Water Program after the day sight seeing yesterday. We spent the day with important "social engineers" from the BMC. The BMC, or the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, is the name of the municipality in charge of providing water and sanitation services, among others, to the residents of Mumbai. Over the past 4 months we have been working in cooperation with Mr. Anand Jagtap of the BMC's Mumbai Sewage and Disposal Program (MSDP) and Officer on Special Duty for the Slum Sanitation Program (SSP) in Mumbai to understand how the SSP has developed based on its unique demand-driven, community-based approach to sanitation provision. We hope the SSP will serve as a stepping stone for developing similarly managed, community-based water provision for slum communities. Mr. Jagtap has worked to establish the Slum Sanitation Program since it's initiation in 1995 and has seen hundreds of programs implemented in the last 15 years. Our team has gain valuable learning from him over the last several months, and most recently today in our visits to SSP installations.

We began the day meeting Mr. Jagtap and his colleagues at the MSDP headquarter office in Mumbai. We reviewed how the SSP works, from conception to implementation to more large scale development and function (top photo). We learned in detail how all parties, like the BMC, the community, the contractor, the NGO, etc., are involved. We then proceeded to visit three Slum Sanitation Program locations in various slums.



The first SSP was located next to a school and a communal area for festivals. The first and second floors were designated for toilets, while the third floor was both a management office and a roof top garden where the water tanks are located. The facility was very clean and well-managed. After speaking with the manager of the toilet block as well as a handful of community members, we moved on to the second SSP located in Dharavi, Mumbai and Asia's largest slum community. The SSP facility in Dharavi was also clean and pretty large-scale. Each SSP serves between 1,000-2,000+ community residents and pay-per-use users, and everyone pays for using the sanitation services. The most interesting part of the visit to the second SSP was the community-based organization (CBO) that manages the toilet block and represents the community. The CBO plays an instrumental role in maintaining a relationship between the BMC and community, and also provides other resources to the community. When we visited, a group of 10 women (middle photo) were taking English classes in the building next to the SSP. As seen in the photo, Erin Binder (Acara Institute's Executive Director) met with the women's group during our visit. On the second floor kids were taking a computer class. All SSP locations require a CBO to demand sanitation services from the BMC before the any SSP is constructed for the community. This community involvement and demand has played a key role in the development and success of the SSP. The final slum we visited was located in the Mumbai garbage dump, where the roads through the slum are made of piles of trash (bottom photo) and the houses are actually built on the old part of the dump. This slum was the most impoverished we've seen to date, but the SSP located within was comparable with the first two. Delegations interested in community sanitation programs from 57 nations have visited the slum, with representatives from places like Kenya to Japan. In a community with so little infrastructure and resources, it was great to see the SSP and to meet the CBO helping to provide quality of life resources to people in need. We enjoyed learning about the program from the manager, who lives on the second floor of the building with his family. We finished off our visits with a wrap up discussion with Mr. Jagtap at a local restaurant specializing in North Indian cuisine.

Overall, it was a great day and the visits to the SSP locations have really helped our team to understand how a Slum Water Program could fit into the existing framework for community based development projects in the slums of Mumbai. Most importantly, every community is extremely different. Therefore we realize the need to provide a dynamic water solution that can be adapted to each individual community. For instance, in the last community we visited, the slum is built on a garbage dump where many of the people are waste pickers. Other slums we have visited have been on steep hills or have had torn up roads. A system of water delivery must be tailored to each community in a way that makes sense for how the slum is structured and the community must play a large role in the development of their water solution. We believe a water program can work in many slum communities if the community is involved with developing the solution and the distribution and payment systems work for the users. We now will be working to determine the best way forward.

Gateway of India

Today we took a day off from our work schedule to do some tourism of the business and commercial districts of the city. Erin Binder of the Acara challenge joined us today for her first day in India. After seeing the Gateway of India, we were met by U of MN Acara Challenge participant, and Mumbai resident Neel Kulkarni. Neel took us around the various sites of Mumbai from the beach where we sampled Indian cool treats to the sites of the terrorist attacks at the Taj and Oberoi Trident hotels. We also took in a national art gallery, visited the beautiful Victoria Terminal (VT) train station, and stopped for a photo opportunity outside the Bombay Municipal Cooperation Building. We finished up the day by doing some gift shopping at the Bombay Store, had a nice iced coffee drink at Coffee Day, and took a fascinating train ride home through the city.

Saturday in Mumbai

Today started with a change of scenery. We moved from the Rodas Hotel, where we stayed the first 3 nights, to the student housing at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai. After settling in to our new rooms we met with Dr. Sethi from the Center for Environmental Science and Engineering and toured his labs. It was great to learn about some of the environmental research going on here from monitoring of air quality throughout India to experimenting with gasifiers to obtain energy from biomass.

After lunch in the mess hall at our hostel, we spent a few hours relaxing before taking off for our second slum visit. This time we visited a slum a bit farther from campus and were guided by two men who live in the community. Again we spoke with several community residents about their water situation. In this slum, water runs from 5:30-9:30pm every night and people pay for all the water coming into the slum. It consisted of permanent housing. People pay the equivalent of about $3 per month per family for water. The largest problems were that the pipes are old at 25 years and that often the pipes run through the sewer drains. We frequently saw pipes that were leaking water, which means that dirty water can also get into the water pipes. All the people we spoke with boil water only during monsoon (which starts in ~1 week) since many more of the pipes become submerged in contaminated sewage water. There are few sewage lines in these communities, instead just open sewer drains.

After returning from the slum visit, we returned to the hostel, played some ping pong, and headed out for a night in Mumbai. We took "autos," or auto rickshaws, to a nice restaurant not far from campus where we enjoyed ourselves for a few hours. Then it was back to the hostel for a restless night of sleep in our steamy dorms.

Slum Visit

Slum Visit

Today began with a morning meeting with our contact from the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, Mr. Anand Jugtap. He was very informative with insights into the Slum Sanitation Program and about the implementation of a water program in general. He is going to be setting up a tour of Slum Sanitation facilities on Monday, meetings with a slum water cooperative on Wednesday and a group meeting with the community based organizations on Friday. He will be helping us refine our ideas and move our program forward.

We also had our first tour of a slum community during the time period when water runs throughout the city of Mumbai, between 1-4pm. This is the only time period water runs through the municipal lines. It was very interesting to see firsthand some of the conditions that we had been reading about the past six months. Even within the same community, people obtain water in a variety of ways. Some people own municipal taps, which are usually located in the narrow walk ways/streets between homes. Some buy water from neighbors. Some take water from public taps and carry it longer distances to their homes. There were also a few wells, though they were not in use. In general, people do receive about 30-50L of water per capita per day. During our community visit, it was most useful to learn from the community members about their water use, treatment, and problems. We met with community members and were able to see the problems with the water distribution system and learn about how they currently obtain water. From the visit, we saw a lot and hope to use our observations and informal discussions to further our ideas.

Tomorrow we will be moving onto the IIT Bombay campus and making more visits to two other slum communities in Mumbai.

First day

Today completes are first full day in India. The morning started out by meeting a Mr. Gagan Goyle. He started his first business while in his third year of university at IIT Bombay. He now runs a successful startup business that works to educate students in real life science and engineering through providing curriculum and training and in the field of robotics. He gave us good insight into what it takes to start a successful business.

After the morning meeting and some time attempting to sort out phone service, we had the privilege of meeting our IIT Bombay counterparts for the first time. We gave the presentation for our water solution and received critical feedback from the students on our ideas. We also had the pleasure of meeting with the community representatives that had been assisting the IIT Bombay students with their ground research. After the critique session, we organized our first field trip into the slums.

Tomorrow we will be traveling into slums near IIT Bombay campus to perform our first round of field research. We hope to learn more about how our program can be adapted to a slum setting. We will be working with two students from IIT Bombay and the community representative. We will also be meeting with Mr Jugtap, our contact at the municipality of greater Mumbai.

Arrived in Mumbai!

In a little under a day of travel, the ReachOut team arrived safely in Mumbai. We caught some lovely views of the city as we flew in and saw some of the telltale Mumbai landmarks. After a slightly hair-raising taxicab journey through a vast array of auto-rickshaws, bikes, trucks and other taxi cabs all jockeying for a few inches of road available, we arrived in our hotel safe and sound. Tomorrow we will be getting acclimatized to the city and meeting our IIT Bombay counterparts in person for the first time.

4 Days Until the Trip

Welcome to the ReachOut Water Solutions Acara challenge Mumbai trip blog!

We hope to update this blog as regularly as possible while on our trip with pictures, progress, and thoughts about our time in Mumbai.