STATISTICS

• With an ever-increasing population of more than one billion, India remains home to some of the poorest people on earth.
  
• Worsening drought over a period of ten years has depleted the water table and put water at the top of the agenda.  In 2009, northern India suffered its driest June for 83 years [Observer, 12/07/09].
  
• Worldwide, over two billion people (around one third of the world’s population) lack adequate sanitation, while more than one billion people live without access to safe drinking water, crucial factors in health and life expectancy [World Bank].
  
• India is home to 16% of the World’s population and 4% of its fresh water resources[WaterAid].
  
• Just 15% of the rural population in India (itself more than 700 million people) has access to clean sanitation, a lower proportion than almost anywhere in the world.  To meet the Millennium goal of halving the proportion of people without sanitation by 2015 would require 29 million people to gain access to basic sanitation every year [WaterAid].
  
• Economic growth tends to marginalise further the rural poor; job opportunities are usually concentrated in the cities, while the poor face rising prices associated with growth.  Migration to the cities threatens community and family life and often leads to worse deprivation.
  
• Average life expectancy in India  is 63 years compared to 79 years in the UK [WHO, 2009].
  
• 9% of children in India die before their fifth birthday, mostly from preventable diseases like diarrhoea [WaterAid].
  
• Within the Khandel area, adult literacy is only around 36% (with an especially low rate among women).
  
• There is a primary/middle school, but children have to travel up to 15km for secondary education.
  
• There is no provision of medical care in the small villages. With more than 80% of the population depending on agriculture for survival, increasing drought has imposed particularly severe hardship, and increased pressure on the young to leave.