Basically the structure of our travel is divided in shorter periods. Most of them are investigation periods, where the team is divided in small groups of 2-4 people, for investigating different aspects of life in the travel countries.
For our first investigation period, Gita, Attila and I decided to find out more about the situation with clean drinking water in India. Our idea was that we would prove that privatization of water is a big problem for people in India. Our strategy was to visit both a village, a town and a big city and talk with shop owners, officials and ordinary people, to learn about the water situation.
The village we pointed out for us to go first was by coincidence the former Danish colony Tranquebar. It is situated on the east coast of the state Tamil Nadu and has a population of about 4.000 people. What we found, was that there is a problem with drinking water, mainly because the village is so close to the sea that the ground water is salty and not possible to drink. But we also found the Tamil Nadu government are taking care of the problem. Every morning at 6 am trucks arrive with clean drinking water, which is added to a system of pipes running through the village. So people need to be up with their bottles and cans to fill them with water needed for the day.
We were also invited to visit the home of a woman we met – and she showed us, that the water provided by the government is actually not very good, and that especially during rainy season it gets mixed with dirty water, and dangerous to drink. Middle class people who can afford it, they buy their drinking water.
We also met the only two Danish people who are living in Tranquebar – a retired couple, who stay there 5 months/year. They have been part of initiating that a Danish clothes company is now sponsoring improvements for people in Tranquebar, including sewage system, streets, and running water in the houses. The couple also told us a lot about the consequences of the Tsunami in Tranquebar, where 600-700 people died – that is 20% of the population! The people who died were mainly children and women. The Tsunami first came with one big wave, which threw a lot of fish up on land. Many women were walking along the beach picking the fish, when the second wave surprised them. Along the beach, there is a belt of bushes with torns, which the saris of the women got tangled into – and they drowned. We went to see the area which was hit by the Tsunami, and the wrecked houses are still there. But we also saw the little village of new houses built for the victims, by the government. Houses which definitely are safer and have a better standard, then what these people had before.
Next destination was Rajapalayam, which I already told you a bit about. Here we again talked with shop owners and people, and found that the situation with drinking water is not bad. It is provided by the government from a big dam of water, created by water coming down from the mountains. Many people have their own water pump in the house, and those who cannot afford that, share with their neighbours. But we had read on the internet, that there is a lack of water in Rajapalayam area, so we felt there was more to it.
When we learned that the town is called “cotton city” because of the many cotton industries, we were sure that this was the reason for lack of water. So we went to visit a cotton mill, which is one of the biggest exporters of medical bandages to Europe. It was a big experience to see the big productions with hundreds of busy people. We learned about the bad working conditions the workers of the factory have. They work 360 days/ year, and earn 120 rs (less than 3 dollars)/day for 8 hours of work. The sound in the factory was extremely loud, and the air was full of cotton dust. There were many things we found which were not good, but… they didn’t use any water. So we could not prove that the privatization of water through big industries is a problem.
Finally we continued to Trivandrum in the state Kerala. Trivandrum is a big, quite modern and extremely noisy city. It is the main city in Kerala – so here we managed to find Kerala Water Authorities, which are in charge of providing clean water to all people in the state. The boss we talked with, explained how they are dealing with securing the water situation in their state, and as far as we could find out, people in Kerala have access to clean drinking water. When we asked if it is a problem that big companies use huge amounts of water, the man clearly stated that they do not accept that. Proudly he told us about a concrete example of how a Coca Cola factory some years ago, used big amounts of ground water, and the level started falling. Then the people in the area, together with the government closed down the factory and the ground water level is now back to normal.
As you can see, we didn’t achieve what we expected from our water investigation. We could not prove that the privatization of water is a big problem in the states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Our main conclusion is that the situation with drinking water is quite okay. But we also found evidence that the sales of bottled water is growing a lot, because many middle class people chose to buy their drinking water to be more safe.
The main providers of bottled drinking water are Pepsico and CocaCola, and there is no doubt that they are earning lots of money already and will do more in the future. We are also very sure, that what we found, does not give a very representative picture of the water situation in India. We have been reading quite a lot and know that in other parts, especially big cities, the water problem is huge and growing. But this is how it is with investigating.
Through putting our own experiences together with theoretical knowledge, and then also sharing the gained knowledge between us in the whole team, we can start to get a picture of India – the biggest democracy in the world.
