Follow-up survey - 14th feb 2024 (Tandipur ILC device has been closed)

[Archi11Gupta]

TANDIPUR DEVICE HAS BEEN CLOSED

Today, we visited Tandipur and found that the ILC device had been closed for 2 days in the village. The reasons given by villagers and pump operator were-

1. Before the last 2 days, dosing had increased tremendously according to them and people were facing issues with the smell/taste of the water
2. They said that they were unable to cook food and it was going bad using the JJM tap water
3. We asked PO if he had informed/asked GV regarding the same, and he replied that he was pressured by the villagers to close it off so he didn't wait to ask GV
4. For our testing we requested him to open the device slightly so that the flow is low and we could conduct the testing, we had to do it because we didn't know the situation beforehand in the village and we couldn't relocate to a different village
5. My team realized that initially, they couldn't sense any smell in the water but once the water started flowing for a longer duration they could also smell chlorine in the same

Some observations I have-

1. PO either close off the device as a whole or open it like they don't know how to control valves in a way so that if on some day dosing gets increased they regulate the flow by closing off the valve a little. Now, I don't know if this is something that would change the situation but just a thought I had and curiosity regarding the instructions given to them by GV in such situations
2. The range of most of our readings was- 0.00 to 0.09 which isn't a lot that is also because they had turned off the device for the last 2 days in the village
3. Our team asked a lot of people in the village regarding their experience and everybody seemed dissatisfied with the taste/smell of the JJM water either they are using alternative sources of water or they are asking the PO to close off the device in case people don't have alternative sources
4. I feel more than the safety issue people are concerned more about the taste and smell which is to say even if they think drinking this water will help them in the long run compromising the taste/smell is a far way to go