India Water Portal

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The India Water Portal is a rich online resource base and virtual community on water. The Water Portal is an idea that was mooted by the National Knowledge Commission, which is interested in the creation of a stable of knowledge portals in critical areas. The Water Portal was launched officially in January 2007 at a function at the Prime Minister’s residence in New Delhi. It is a completely free and open platform, for the dissemination of information and knowledge and discussion and debate on water issues.  
 
The Water Portal contains a rich storehouse of experiential knowledge from practitioners in the field. This consists of case studies, movies, slideshows and courses based on the work done by partner organisations on various domains of water eg. groundwater, rainwater harvesting, water quality, urban water.

 The Water Portal has invested significant resources in the creation of innovative resources or applications that apply recent advances in technology to specific water problems. An example is the Meteorological Data application that provides 11 climate parameters (including rainfall, temperature, evapotranspiration) for all parts of the country for the past 100 years. This has been mapped onto a GIS platform and also calculated according to district boundaries, to makes it very easy to use for anyone. Another application is the creation of multimedia e-learning courses on watersheds, groundwater, fluoride mitigation and more, to facilitate the spread of knowledge.

The Kannada Water Portal was launched in February 2008 and the Hindi Water Portal  in November 2008. Through these portals we have realized an important part of the vision which is to make water information and knowledge available in Indian languages.
 
The Water Portal has been in a constant state of learning and enhancement in order to meet the needs of practitioners and citizens. We have found significant success in our "Ask A Question" service where practitioners offer their knowledge free of charge to help citizens and others solve their water related problems. To emphasize the importance of Sanitation towards health and safe drinking water we have launched the Sanitation  Portal in collaboration with several other organisations. Besides this we have launched the Conflicts Portal, in association with the Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India. The Schools Water Portal is proving popular with educators and students.

The Water Portal has also felt the necessity of offline dissemination to reach a wider audience. To this end we have organised workshops to meet our users and understand their needs and educate them on using the Portal. We also use CDs, radio programming, kiosks at major events, print media and other channels to draw attention to water issues.                                                                                                                       

 The Water Portal is envisioned to be a collaborative and partnership-driven effort. The content on the Portal is from different organisations who have documented their efforts and learnings and contributed this material to the Portal for wider dissemination. The Portal seeks to create a core group of people who see the value in such an effort and who will invest their time and effort in making the Portal a valuable and vibrant site. The long-term vision is that the Portal has multiple stakeholders, including financially, and is supported by the broader water community.

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