Once Drinking Toxic Water, 3000 Villagers in Bengal Now Fill Their Bottles From a Safe Community Tap

On a warm April morning in Raspur, 12-year-old Uma Saha stands at the community tap with her school bag on one shoulder and an empty bottle in her hand. She turns the blue handle and watches clear water rise and swirl into the plastic. Around her, other children do the same before setting off for class. For the first time in living memory, the village has a place where parents tell their children to fill up before they leave home.

Raspur lies in Mohammad Bazar tehsil, about 15 kilometres from Suri in Birbhum district, West Bengal. The village has around 300 houses and a population of a little over 2,000, most of them from the Oraon community. For decades, they drew drinking water from eight tube wells that residents say were laced with iron, arsenic and other contaminants, along with high total dissolved solids.

In April 2025, a new ultrafiltration water plant began running here. For families who had long lived with stomach upsets, stained utensils and the taste of metal, the change feels simple and profound.

“We suffered chronic water shortage for years,” says resident Champa Saha. “Our whole village relied on tube-well water, which contained iron and arsenic. We had to drink that water because we could not buy jars from the market. On our request, an organisation helped us get clean drinking water.”

The plant sits on a 500-square-foot plot purchased for the project. It sources groundwater through a deep bore and runs it through sand and charcoal filtration, then a membrane, followed by UV treatment. The system stores water in a 1,000-litre tank and supplies it through a community tap. Families now come with bottles and canisters twice a day when the tank is filled.

The long wait for clean water

For nearly eight decades after Independence, Raspur’s residents had no access to safe drinking water. Over time, the wells ran dry, and the tube wells that replaced them began yielding poor-quality water.

“Most of the tube wells were either broken or gave us red, bitter-tasting water,” recalls Champa. “We kept using it because there was no other option.”

Generations of families continued to rely on the same sources, unaware of how harmful the water had become. With limited resources and awareness, the villagers endured the challenge for decades, focusing on daily survival.

“We only knew that this was the water we had to drink to survive,” says another villager, Rekha Saha, who remembers walking long distances each morning to fetch a few buckets.

Rekha’s home now stands just beside the new plant. “I feel relief every day,” she says. “We use this water only for drinking. Washing and cleaning are not allowed. We guard it carefully and fill the tank twice a day.”

The change has brought visible comfort to daily life. Children no longer spend an hour walking to distant tube wells. Women who once queued with heavy pots now chat as they wait near the tap. What seems like a simple tap now marks the end of a decades-long struggle.

A chance meeting that changed everything

The change began when Jaydeep Mukherjee, founder and CEO of the Kolkata-based ‘Meghdutam Foundation’, visited the area in mid-2024. He had been working on a project in Gangte, a nearby village, when Nagendra Tripathi, the then Superintendent of Police in Birbhum district, told him about the severe water scarcity in the tribal belt of Deucha-Pachami.

Curious and concerned, Mukherjee travelled there himself. “When I met the villagers, I realised how much they had endured,” he recalls. “Their only source of water was heavily contaminated, and I knew we had to find a safe solution.”

After purchasing a 500-square-foot plot in Raspur, the foundation began work in July 2024. They drilled about 380 feet to reach groundwater, and samples were sent for testing to Italab Private Limited in Kolkata. The report arrived on 4 September 2024 — and what it revealed shocked everyone.

“We found the test report utterly shocking,” says Mukherjee. “It had a TDS of 1,355 milligrams per litre and 4.70 milligrams per litre of lead, compared to the world standard of 0.01. It plays havoc with everything — our nervous, reproductive, and digestive systems. People in this area have a lot of cases, where even some of them have died,” he adds.

There are no medical records linking these deaths to water contamination, but the lab results alone were enough to alarm the team. The findings pushed them to rethink their plan. They had initially considered installing a standard filtration unit, but further testing showed that contamination persisted even at deeper levels.

“The water which I cannot drink, I can’t force the villagers to drink,” Mukherjee says firmly.

The final decision was to install a full ultrafiltration unit that met international benchmarks — a costly choice, but the only acceptable one. The plant, which cost over Rs 8 lakh, was entirely funded by the foundation.

When a community takes ownership

By April 2025, the ultrafiltration plant was complete and formally handed over to the people of Raspur. For Mukherjee and his team, the real challenge began after the inauguration. “The hardest part after installation is upkeep,” he says. “In the future, the plant may require filter cleansing, tank cleaning, or electrical repairs. The villagers need to be ready for these expenses.”

To ensure sustainability, the foundation encouraged the community to take full responsibility from day one. Mukherjee proposed forming a seven-member, women-led committee to manage maintenance. “Since women look after the household chores and are the first to notice any issue with the water, they were the right choice,” he explains.

The committee, though informal, operates with a strong sense of trust. Every morning and evening, when villagers gather to collect water, the women collect small contributions — Re 1, Rs 5, or Rs 10 — depending on what each family can afford. This fund covers the cost of electricity and routine maintenance.

Rekha, one of the committee members, says the system works because everyone understands its importance. “We have all seen the difference. Now we make sure this plant never stops working,” she says.

Today, the plant provides clean water to around 3,000 people — including 1,000 residents from nearby villages who travel by cycle or motorbike to fill their containers. For them, this is the nearest source of safe water for drinking and cooking, and they too contribute to its upkeep.

How a tap became a symbol of hope

Since the plant began operating, Raspur’s rhythm of life has slowly transformed. Children head to school with bottles filled from the tap instead of metal pitchers drawn from iron-stained wells. Women no longer spend hours walking long distances to fetch water. Conversations at the community point now carry a sense of shared pride rather than resignation.

“It feels good to see people from other villages come here for water,” says Champa. “We used to go to them before. Now they come to us.”

For Mukherjee, each visit to Raspur reaffirms why his team took on the expensive project. “It had been our sixth installation, and this one took nearly six months to finish,” he says. “The villagers took ownership quickly, and that’s what keeps it running. Seeing children fill their bottles before school gives me real satisfaction.”

Encouraged by the success at Raspur, Meghdutam Foundation has planned four more installations across West Bengal’s Purulia and Bankura districts in the current financial year. The hope is to replicate the same community-led model — one that places trust and responsibility in the hands of the people it serves.

In Raspur, the sound of water flowing from the tap has come to mean something deeper than convenience. For the villagers, it signals dignity, health, and a new beginning — proof that even after 78 years of waiting, change can arrive clear, cold, and life-giving.

All images courtesy Partho Burman and Meghdutam Foundation

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