In several parts of India, particularly in villages, where there is no piped water facility supported by water treatment systems, people rely on groundwater drawn from the wells and hand pumps. As the groundwater is not treated, it can often be contaminated leading to several health problems.
The CSR team of our integrated unit Balaji Cement Works, through the primary medical camps conducted by the unit, found that people residing at eight villages located in the vicinity of the unit were suffering from health problems because of drinking contaminated ground water. Children were found to be suffering from dental fluorosis, middle-aged people were suffering from skeletal fluorosis, and elderly people were suffering from stiff joints and other symptoms of osteoarthritis.
Further investigations revealed that the groundwater in these villages had higher than recommended levels of fluoride. The concentration of fluoride in the groundwater of the region reached up to 8.8 mg/l, while the permissible limit for human consumption as per WHO standard is 0.5 to 1.5 mg/l.
The unit team led by its CSR team worked to proactively address the issue through a specially designed CSR project where six Reverse Osmosis (RO) plants were set up in six locations covering these eight villages. The villages covered were R N Thanda, Budawada, Tripuravaram, T G Palem and Cheruvu Bazar in Andhra Pradesh and Y R P Thanda, Ramanjaneya Thanda and Kuchipudi in Telangana. The project helped to provide safe and clean drinking water to over 16,800 villagers who hailed from 4,200 households of the villages.
The team set up the first RO plant in Budawada at Andhra Pradesh in 2018. In 2023 the unit team set up five more RO plants: one at YRP Thanda (Talangana); one at Kuchipudi (Talangana); two at Jaggayyapet (Andhra Pradesh), and the fifth one again in Budawada. Four of the five new RO plants are of 1000 Litres Per Hour (LPH) capacity and one is of 250 LPH capacity. After the commissioning of the RO plants, our unit CSR team trained local villagers to operate the plants and handed the RO plants to the respective panchayat and municipality for operation and maintenance to enable a self-sustaining model.
