prasad1
Active member
NEW DELHI: India draws epithets mostly of two kinds from foreigners. Indophiles call it 'exotic' for its rich multi-culturalism, mysticism, spirituality and other cliched reasons. Yet, others scathingly dub it as a 'dump' for its egregious lack of sanitation, infrastructure and development. Some go as far as calling India a 'shithole' 'drowning in its own excreta'.
But an American Ph.D student Marta Vanduzer-Snow (34) moved to rural India three years ago thinking that India needed a different approach altogether—"To be an invisible human who makes a difference on the ground."
The result—Marta, a Rutgers University scholar who grew up in Boston, got 82 low-cost evapotranspiration toilets in homes and 1 in a primary school and 10 feet wide 122 meters permeable roads constructed, all at half or one-third the cost of similar governmental projects in the villages of Rai Bareli and Amethi in Uttar Pradesh.
Each government toilet, built under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan that aims to eliminate open defecation by Mahatma Gandhi's 150th anniversary in October 2019, costs about Rs.17000, but the evapotranspiration toilet that Marta has brought to the villages costs only Rs. 9109. As against government's Rs. 4 lakh per 100 meter of interlocking road, Marta's 100 meter permeable road costs only Rs. 2 lakh.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...ts-in-Uttar-Pradesh/articleshow/47748789.cms?
But an American Ph.D student Marta Vanduzer-Snow (34) moved to rural India three years ago thinking that India needed a different approach altogether—"To be an invisible human who makes a difference on the ground."
The result—Marta, a Rutgers University scholar who grew up in Boston, got 82 low-cost evapotranspiration toilets in homes and 1 in a primary school and 10 feet wide 122 meters permeable roads constructed, all at half or one-third the cost of similar governmental projects in the villages of Rai Bareli and Amethi in Uttar Pradesh.
Each government toilet, built under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan that aims to eliminate open defecation by Mahatma Gandhi's 150th anniversary in October 2019, costs about Rs.17000, but the evapotranspiration toilet that Marta has brought to the villages costs only Rs. 9109. As against government's Rs. 4 lakh per 100 meter of interlocking road, Marta's 100 meter permeable road costs only Rs. 2 lakh.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...ts-in-Uttar-Pradesh/articleshow/47748789.cms?
