Deonar Informal Settlement Mumbai, India
Located in one of Mumbai’s most underdeveloped pockets is the cities rubbish dump, Deonar. It covers approximately 132 acres and is home to around 600,000 people. 70% of Deonar’s residents depend on the waste dump to make a living by selling scraps of metal and plastic. Conditions in the slum are terrible and the life expectancy of residents here is just 39 years. There is piped water to some areas, however cracks and breaks mean that this water is often contaminated. Tankard water is also delivered, but this is also unsafe even after boiling and manually sieving.
Currently, there are two water plants in the settlement that serve around 6,000 – this is just 1% of Deonar’s population. These water plants filter and treat water in four stages producing safe, clean drinking water that is available to residents at a much lower cost than before.
Drop4drop are currently working with the local NGO who set up the initial plants, with the aim of streamlining the projects, reducing costs and making them more efficient. We plan to sell water to the community at a small cost of 50 paise (£0.005). The revenue made through this will be used to install more water filtration plants, thus helping more people in the process.