Guest blogger Mallika Ahluwalia works for ACCESS Development Services, an Indian firm providing inclusive and innovative livelihood solutions enabling the poor to ovecome poverty and live with dignity.

By Mallika Ahluwalia

Yakalakshmi lives in Nekkunda village, part of the Telengana region of Andhra Pradesh, with her husband and two children. Though she has water piped to her house by the village panchayat, her entire family fell ill for a month last monsoon season by drinking water directly from the tap. "We all got high fever and severe diarrhea," and as a result, "we had to spend around Rs. 4000 ($100) on health care, which was very difficult for us." So, when Yakalakshmi got the opportunity this past January to buy an effective water purifier through her Self Help Group (SHG) on an installment basis, she was one of the first to sign up.

Yakalakshmi is just one of the beneficiaries of a unique tie-up between ACCESS Development Services, an Indian microfinance technical services non-profit organization, and Hindustan Unilever Limited, one of the country's largest producers of fast-moving consumer goods, to provide safe drinking water to rural poor. "Most of these villages have piped water or boreholes," according to Padma, Project Coordinator at a local NGO; "the problem is that tests by UNICEF in this district show that up to 70 percent of these sources are contaminated." The contamination gets even worse during the rainy season, especially due to poor sanitation and waste-management practices.

Though local bodies have been working to raise community awareness on the importance of safe drinking water, the major penalties of affordability and access remained. Enter the innovative partnership between ACCESS and HUL. HUL has designed a household water-purifier, PureIt, which uses a four-stage filtration process to remove all bacteria, viruses, dirt, and pesticides resulting in water that is 'as safe as boiled water.' It does not require electricity or running water. ACCESS facilitates loans for rural women to be able to afford these water purifiers through its partner microfinance institutions (MFIs).

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