After flying for 27 hours, we were welcomed to our ornate hotel which looks more like a Moorish palace with inlaid marble floors. We took a quick sightseeing and shopping trip through downtown Bhopal – combination of lavish tropical scenery and people living on the side of street in slums.
Two water and sanitation experts from UNICEF met us at the hotel even though it was their day off. They spoke with us for several hours describing water and sanitation issues in Madhya Pradesh. Their focus is to encourage sustainable development. Almost any water project will succeed as long as the international NGO is pumping in money and handholding. The challenge is to develop projects that will transition to local support and continue. There is often a tradeoff between technology and convenience. The community needs to make decisions that are right for their situation. For example a simple handpump may be a preferred solution for a community rather than a more sophisticated piped water system. This is because the village has the resources to maintain the handpump but the more complex system will not be sustainable. Mr. Singh and Sanjay also provided many other contacts for us in the government and university. This was a most valuable meeting for us and an encouraging start for our study.