India

Project

Urban Small Water Enterprise

This program addresses the challenge of providing safe water in urban slums by assessing the policy landscape around Small Water Enterprises (SWE), understanding the challenges and key drivers of success and providing tools to support the implementation of SWEs. An SWE is a business that purifies and sells water on a small scale to populations living in areas where piped water is unavailable. This program developed and made three tools (financial viability, water quality and technology, monitoring and evaluation) available as mobile apps to help entrepreneurs make their SWEs successful.

Document

Project Profile: Clean India Campaign

India: Taking on the World’s Largest Sanitation Problem

Clean India Campaign | 2015–2020

Currently more than 377 million people live in India’s urban areas, a number that continues to increase rapidly. India’s urbanization puts tremendous stress on already struggling drinking water and sanitation services. To address these daunting challenges, the Government of India made improving water and sanitation a national priority in 2014 with the launch of the Swachh Bharat Mission (Clean India Campaign).

Video

Pooled Financing for Water

USAID in India issued a Development Credit Authority bond guarantee to several municipalities in India to help them raise funds from investors to build and improve water infrastructure. Learn more here.

Blog

The Beauty of a Wastewater Treatment Plant

Most people are familiar with the breathtaking view of the Taj Mahal with its waterways, walking paths and topiary. Of course, this is the perspective from the south, but personally I find that the view from the north is just as moving. From there, you can see the mighty Yamuna river. The poet Rabindranath Tagore once wrote: “The Taj Mahal rises above the banks of the river like a solitary tear suspended on the cheek of time.”

Article

The Beauty of a Wastewater Treatment Plant

Nine years ago, USAID supported the development of a wastewater treatment system that would treat wastewater, reduce waterborne diseases, and clean the river. Now, the local municipal corporation has taken it over, and others are following this model.

Central Program

Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Partnerships and Learning for Sustainability

The Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Partnerships and Learning for Sustainability (WASHPaLS) project is a five-year (2016–2021) Task Order working to improve water supply, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programming by identifying, researching and sharing best practices for the delivery of WASH services and sustained behavior change. WASHPaLS supports the Agency’s goal of reducing morbidity and mortality in children under five as part of the Ending Preventable Child and Maternal Deaths initiative.

Panel Discussion

The State of Water and Sanitation in India (Live Stream)

India is a water stressed nation.  Yet it is India’s states that have ultimate authority over many water related issues.  Water is a key pillar in these states’ ambitions to improve the quality of life of their citizens and to drive industrial growth.  These states must form innovative partnerships to meet their needs within the context of growing scarcity, increased pollution, and interstate conflict. This discussion, organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies is first public segment of the Indian States Engagement Fo