This site uses cookies, as explained in our terms of use. If you consent, please close this message and continue to use this site.
Nuvodita Singh
1 min Read
A colleague and I were discussing the theme for this year’s World Water Day – Wastewater. Immediately my mind conjured images of industries and factories churning out chemical laden waste, of urban sewage systems, and of frothy rivers as a result. The common themes running through all these images are- ‘Structure’, ‘Organization’, and ‘Linear Systems’.
These systems are designed to take wastewater away for disposal from its original source of production so that the order of mundane operations can be maintained, notwithstanding the occasional spanner in the works. A useful response to the ill effects of these operations is the implementation of infrastructure such as wastewater treatment plants that essentially create ‘feedback loops’ in an otherwise linear system and help further the cause of the ‘circular economy’. This is easy to visualize for an urban setting where the ‘building blocks’ such as procurement of land, labour, and resources are already in place, or at least available at hand. It is also a very sustainable pathway for urban development.
But what of communities far removed from these cityscapes? What of rural settings that might be relatively disorganized, or informal settlements marked by the absence of those ‘building blocks’, or any structural sewage or waste disposal system? Let us look at ‘Exhibit A’, Naya Tola Bishambharpur (NTB), a small village in the floodplains of Bihar’s West Champaran district.
<<READ MORE>>
Share
Stay up to date on what’s happening around the HKH with our most recent publications and find out how you can help by subscribing to our mailing list.
Related Content
The handset shortwave radio finally crackled, 'Chimi ji, are you still there? Over!' asked Ngawang, the leader of the expedition ...
The question “Will you go to Afghanistan?” was not something I had expected to hear when I first joined the ...
As she struggled to get her wailing three-year old into her school clothes, Saraswati heard the milk hiss away in ...
“You won’t have to walk. I’ll drop you off at the doorstep of a homestay in Dallekh,” the driver said ...
Every year Delhi hits the headlines of national news quite often than any other city in India. Smog, crime, pollution ...
Former U.S. President John F. Kennedy once said, “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to ...
For the Chepang, a highly marginalized indigenous community that primarily inhabits the ridges of the Mahabharat mountain range in Nepal, ...
The changes happening in Himalayan Rivers has been widely discussed in last decades which ranges from single catchment to large ...