RC Pune University provides safe drinking water to school children Non-availability of safe drinking water is a major problem for most parts of rural India and especially in Maharashtra. So when a residential school in Urali-Kanchan, about 40km from Pune city approached RCPU to help them in his field, the Board of Directors readily agreed. The school has about 230 students from class 4 to class 10 who have to use drinking water from a borewell which is close to a canal. Water from the canal, which is unfit for drinking, percolates into the ground and contaminates the borewell water. As a result, borewell water shows presence of extremely harmful bacteria such as E-Coli. As a result, school children consuming this water face persistent health problems. Water sample brought from the school was examined by President Dileep Paranjpye in a laboratory and it confirmed that the water was indeed unfit for drinking. The test data was shared with a number of water purification companies and asked for proposals to supply purification systems which could provide the school’s requirement of 500 litres per day of good water. Vendors offered Reverse Osmosis (RO) plants for treating the water. Costs of these plants ranged from Rs.80000 to Rs. 250000. In addition they required large operating expenditure for chemicals and electricity, and needed skilled cleaning and maintenance. After a lot of studies, RCPU approached Mr. V Suresh, CEO of Eureka Forbes who had expressed his company’s commitment to provide clean water for people at the Rotary International Literacy Summit held in February’15. President Dileep and Director – Service Projects Rtn. Satish Mohile speedily interacted with the Company’s representatives and identified Ultraviolet treatment equipment suitable for the school’s needs. Eureka Forbes graciously offered a discount on the price to Rotary. An order was placed with 3 years maintenance and servicing for was built in. When the machine was installed, it was found that piping and water storage arrangements in the school were inadequate. RCPU funded the cost of storage tank. The system was inaugurated on 19th June by President Dileep and the club team.