Meeting with Gautham Ravichander from WISA-Janaagraha

I met Gautham Ravichandar who is co-ordinating the new WISA project at Janagrahaaa. I wanted to find out the extent to which they are tracking water in their index and see if there is any way we can collaborate.

So, WISA has hired around 50 people who are going to each and every ward to collect the required info. Once TOI publishes the data they plan to make it open for everyone. I am not sure whether they will make it online but people can go to their office and access that data.

Their focus is more on creating some sort of a quality of life index. The categories they are going to cover are 

1. BWSSB Supply - 1 thing to notice is that the plan to track the BIS Benchmarks measuring with the help of a NABH accredited lab.

2. Parks and Playgrounds

3. Sewage and Sanitation - Public Toilets

4. Mobility

5. Environment - Air Pollution, Green Cover

As far as collaborating with WISA is concerned, they can add a lot of value to our index because they are gathering a lot of creditable data by themselves on BWSSB . However, these folks are not covering water in as much detail atleast for now.They are not covering Ground Water, rain water harvesting and surface lake at all.

They need volunteers in every ward in whose houses they will install pressure monitors and collect samples. I will make a separate post on that.