Ncourage’s initiatives focus on providing access to safe and clean drinking water to underserved areas
Ncourage Social Enterprise Foundation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata Chemicals Ltd, focuses on livelihood creation, capacity building, rural entrepreneurship development, market linkage and uplifting rural lives through quality products and services.
Around 41 million Indians living in underserved areas lack access to clean and safe drinking water. Consumption of contaminated water can transmit lethal diseases like diarrhoea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid etc. As a result, low-income families have to bear a significant economic burden of their annual wages for treating waterborne diseases every year. These people suffer huge costs because of illnesses caused by unsafe and insufficient drinking water. It’s been observed that most of the rural areas still use rudimentary methods to purify water, like sieving through cloth or boiling. These methods have limitations and do not remove invisible impurities like waterborne pathogens.
To address the above problems being faced by the communities across India, Ncourage embarked upon an initiative that focuses on providing access to safe and clean drinking water to these underserved areas.
Swach Tarang
To address the communities’ clean and safe drinking water problems, Ncourage embarked upon Swach Tarang’s initiative in Feb 2019 in association with TCSRD. Ncourage, through this initiative, is installing community purifier units called ‘Tata Swach Tech Jal’ purifier which is based on an innovative and sustainable water purification technology, thereby addressing the major social problems related to health, livelihood, gender equity and improving the quality of life of communities living at the bottom of the pyramid.
Under the Swach Tarang initiative, so far ~260 small & medium-sized clusters of community purification systems have been installed across India with different purification capacities like 100, 200, 500, 1000 and 2000 litres per hour, giving access to safe drinking water to over 90,000+ people in more than 20 states of India.
The key interventions include:
- Mobilisation of communities through collaboration with partners: The organisation started working with grassroots partners (NGOs, SHGs, FPO etc.) to mobilise the community, understand the need and reality at the ground level. Cluster and group awareness sessions were conducted to identify the correct intervention based on community structure. The assessment was done to understand the demand and capacity requirements by the clusters and the readiness of the community to look after the water purification system. Based on this, appropriate community space and the beneficiary groups were then identified.
- Operations and maintenance: To establish systems and provide water purification facilities to these underserved communities, a tripartite arrangement was advocated, which included contributions from partners/ NGOs and the communities and support from the foundation. The contributions received were put together for installing purifiers for the targeted communities directly or through associated NGO/SHG partners. TCSRD and Ncourage Foundation also collaborated with other corporates helping them with water purification solutions for the communities where they wish to make a difference.
Models
Swach Tarang program engages with corporates, governments organisations and NGOs and community-based organisations to pilot and create different sustainable, innovative and flexible solutions specific to the community and is working on primarily two models:
- Project financing: As part of its community development initiatives, the corporate/ government is directly funding Swach Tarang for setting up the water purifiers in one or many local communities where they wish to create a difference.
- Self-Sustainable model: The community water purifier units are provided with a flexible repayment model to the NGOs/ SHGs / local community, thus giving the beneficiaries access to free drinking water or customised to the pay per use. As part of the self-sustaining model, the water ATM was also introduced. The Water ATM works just like a prepaid top-up card for mobile phones. These ATMs can be installed at public places for easy access to safe drinking water for everyone. Depending on their water requirement, people can scan on the ATM’s sensor and press the button (1 litre, 5 litres and 10 litres). This ATM facility could be further customised to include normal & cold-water dispensing options.
Uplifting communities
“At Tata Chemicals, we always support initiatives that work towards the upliftment of the communities. Ncourage Social Enterprise Foundation weaves an approach that ensures social impact is enabled to scale and sustain. It is holistic and focused. We explore beyond a single-dimensional outreach and create ecosystems that are independent and self-sustaining. These ecosystems feature the direct beneficiaries at the core. A world that stands on the pillars of social equity, that’s the Ncourage dream we strive to create for a scalable social impact.”
R. Nanda
Director, Ncourage Chief – HR & CSR,
Tata Chemicals
