Denver-based Water For People (WFP), a consortium of some of the biggest water companies in America using international funding, aimed to develop locally sustainable drinking water resources and sanitation facilities.
It planned pilot projects in the state to improve the quality of drinking water resources and sanitation facilities especially in the rural areas.
Around the world, around 884 million people did not have access to safe drinking water and 2.5 billion were without adequate sanitation.
Daily, nearly 6,000 people died from water-related illnesses, and the vast majority was children.
West Bengal had very poor sanitation facilities and lacked safe potable drinking water sources, with arsenic poisoning in rural areas.
Speaking at an interactive workshop on menstrual hygiene and management practices, Rajashi Mukherjee, country coordinator of WFP-India, said the challenge was greater in West Bengal as over 19 million needed access to safe and clean drinking water and over 38 million required proper sanitation facility by 2015. Government intervention and corporate support had to do this, she said.
WFP would be conducting community-based and school-level intervention programmes, like setting up school sanitary blocks, separate toilet blocks for girls and boys, hand wash stations and drinking water stations across four districts of the state to start with, all with community and government participation.
WFP would be conducting arsenic mitigation projects in several districts and set up arsenic filters at locations to supply safe drinking water, said Mukherjee.
