Democratising knowledge and data on water quality in India

Arghyam has been a partner with the INREM Foundation on Water Quality  and has supported them since 2013. INREM is acknowledged as a leading organization on water quality in the country and brings both expertise and a network approach to democratize knowledge and data. INREM is also a Sector Partner for water quality for Jal Jeevan Mission. Through the Water Quality Network, INREM is enabling diverse Communities of Practice across scales to first enhance their existing ability to understand WQ problems, and then be able to access resources and expertise to be able to solve them in their own unique local contexts.

In the working at scale approach since last one year , INREM has continued to act as an expert agency and focussing on  building capacities and handhold large NGOs and networks to act as lead agencies for water quality and through them co-create scale models for water quality. For this INREM has been using technology as an enabler, to reach out to more people, more frequently, light them up as available assets for the ecosystem while leaving behind knowledge assets.

INREM launched the Water Quality Management (WQM) Online course in August 2021  along with partners such as Gram Vikas, AKRSPI, UNICEF, Water Aid, Tata Trusts etc.  The course is supporting to fill a critical gap in the ecosystem and providing  direction on Water Quality Monitoring and Surveillance (WQM&S) component of the Jal Jeevan Mission program to the Public Health and Engineering Department (PHED), Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Department (RWSS), Labs and chemists under JJM, and NGOs/CSOs comprising KRCs, Sector Partners, academicians and so on. 

From August 2021 to December 2022, around 700 participants from 28 states  have been a part of this course and they are further working as ‘Water Quality Champions’ in their respective programs for creating awareness on water quality issues, training the district, block, GP level functionaries and CRP’s in the village and performing water quality  tests. The participants of the course besides spreading the word and bringing more participants are also motivated to give back to the program and are coming back as trainers, experts and mentors for subsequent batches. 

INREM will continue strengthening the institutional capacities of the diverse stakeholders of the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM)  ecosystem through the Water Quality Management (WQM course), Trainer Certification Program and also offering the Water Quality Champions  to be a part of the wider guided mentoring on Water Quality and make them visible to the ecosystem.

INREM has also partnered with the Govt. of Assam to design and implement a program to create the awareness and ownership on the safe sustainable water being provided under Jal Jeevan mission programs through 1 lakh 'Jaldoots', student volunteers from Class 9 and 11, from the schools across Assam.

In January 2023, INREM signed a non-financial MoU with Madhya Pradesh's Public Health and Engineering Department, to provide support to district-level stakeholders on water quality monitoring and surveillance component of the Jal Jeevan Mission programme. 

INREM is also partnering with Govts, CSO organisations and multilateral agencies to improve Field Test Kit testing in the villages and raise the awareness on the issues and solutions of water quality at district saturation scale in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh. 

The participants in the course are ‘visible’ on a platform where they can be engaged by other programs and organizations and continue to contribute to safe water to the communities.