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Water forms the foundation for development and must be available to everybody in adequate quantities and quality. India is heavily dependent on groundwater to meet its drinking water needs. Failure of government schemes to provide safe drinking water coupled with competition from sectors like agriculture has resulted in rise of RO technology as community water purification plants or water ATM’s as an alternative. The RO technology however, comes with its own set of problems especially wastage of huge quantities of water which can have severe implications on future availability of water. Although, the technology is one of the best interventions to improve water quality, there have been instances of unnecessary installations of the plants at places where water quality adheres to the national standards. Hence, this study is aimed at exploring the presence and sustainability of RO technology in 39 villages of Latur district which are part of overexploited watersheds. The study aims to assess the need of the technology through linkages between its establishment and the water quality of the area with in-situ water quality analysis and water quality index.
RO technology has its footprint in 44 % percent of the villages however, it was found that villages with presence of majority of the contaminants had least presence of RO technology. Half of sources chosen for the RO plant showcased good WQI and the other half fell in to the poor category with TDS as the major issue indicting poor choice of sources for the plant. The study shows that just about 35% of the plants were set based on perceived and actual water quality issues. Findings from the study could provide decision makers knowledge to formulate strategic measures to ensure use of right technology at the right place to warrant judicious use of natural and economic resources.
Key words: Reverse osmosis, water quality, field test kit, groundwater, rural
