Status of Grey-Water Management in Rural Areas of Banda District

February 03, 2025

Banda district of Uttar Pradesh is part of the Bundelkhand region, lying in the Indo-Gangetic Plain. The district is largely covered with clayey, sandy and loam soil. The city of Banda is the district headquarter. Around 94 per cent of the population lives in rural areas of the district, depending on groundwater for their domestic needs. Around 283 waterbodies have been rejuvenated under Mission Amrit Sarovar. Despite this, several waterbodies have either been encroached on or receive wastewater from nearby villages.

As per the JJM guidelines, the rate of water supply to the households is 55 litres per capita per day. This means that a family of six people will use almost 330 litres of water per day. The on-the-ground reality however is that although tap connections are reported on the JJM dashboard, most of the households inthe surveyed areas depend on borewells and handpumps. Each household extracts groundwater and stores it either in the 500-litre overhead tank or in any other vessels available. In other words, the volume of water actually used by a family of six people is more than what is provided by government departments. This means that the amount of grey water generated in the survey area is more than the amount predicted. Once all the households connected through taps start receiving water, a huge amount of grey water will be generated as, according to the thumb rule, around 70 per cent of the water is converted to grey water. People with individual borewells and tubewells may use more water than the others, generating even more grey water. CSE’s ground survey clearly shows that rural areas in Banda district are unable to manage their grey water.

The Centre for Science and Environment studied rural areasof Banda to understand the state of greywater management and waterbodies in this region.