DEVELOPMENT OF DISINFECTION DEVICE FOR HANDPUMP

Abstract

All water available from different sources for drinking is not safe and potable. In India, as in other developing countries, lack of sufficient quantities of safe drinking water contributes to much of sickness and disease. Each day about 1,50,000 people die out of • which ohe-third because of water borne diseases. Children are most susceptible 'to these risks. It is estimated that every year 1.5 million pre-school children in India die of diarrhoea. Thus it is imperative that the drinking water supply should be made safe. In case of hand-pump schemes where water is drawn from an underground strata at a shallow depth, the water stands a good risk of getting polluted. Since in many cases, there are hydraulic contacts between shallow and deeper aquifers, even deeper ground water aquifers are not completely protected. Also bacterial pollution may occur in handpump schemes at a later date in cases where sewage, industrial waste, garbage, etc. get discharged below the water table or may reach the aquifer through cavities in the overlying earth covering. Even if the water is from a safe source, post contamination may take place during its conveyance from the handpump and its storage at homes. So in order to make the water free from pathogens and also .to provide a measure of combating any post contamination, water should be treated by properly planned and controlled disinfection. The objective of this study is to develop a low cost disinfecting device for handpump water so as to provide instantaneous treated water when the villagers operate the handpump. The disinfecting unit proposed herein can be successfully used for automatic chlorination, with a desired and constant dose, as and when the water is pumped. The unit is compact and almost free of delicate parts; it can be locally fabrica-ted and installed at site without any difficulty. The capital cost involved in providing the disinfecting unit works out to about Rs. 750/-per unit and the annual maintenance cost to about Rs.10/- per capita, which are very reasonable, specially for people in rural areas. The unit can also be successfully used, with little modifications, to suit India Mark - II handpump which is being mostly used for providing drinking water, particularly, in rural areas.