• Inhabitants: 1 366,4 million
  • Annual income per capita: 7 680 USD
  • Less than 50% of the population in India has access to safely managed drinking water. Chemical contamination of water, mainly through fluoride and arsenic, is present in 1.96 million dwellings. (source)
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India as a nation ranks 120 out of 122 countries for its water quality and has the largest number of people without access to safe drinking water globally, at 75.8 million people.

Naandi Community Water Services (NCWS) is one of India’s largest social enterprises established in 2010; working with a mission to improve lives of the underserved communities by providing access to safe drinking water in a sustainable manner. They do this by setting up decentralized community water centers in regions where the existing sources of drinking water are contaminated (with chemical and microbial contaminants) and unfit for consumption.

NCWS core belief is that successful community mobilization is central to sustainable safe water projects; accordingly the organizations approach emphasizes participatory community involvement through the development of local capacity in managing and delivering self-sustainable services. The model is based on a tripartite partnership between a local community, a donor and NCWS. NCWS manages this partnership from the selection of the location, procuring the equipment, ensuring quality, awareness building, community engagement, driving behavior change, to training community resources to operate and manage the water center and monitoring.

So far, NCWS has reached out to over 640 communities across 7 states in India, impacting the lives of over 750,000 people.

The burden of waterborne diseases among children in India is one of the highest globally. In order to safeguard the health of the children and make them the agents of change in the community, NCWS, under its School Water Program ensures free access to safe drinking water and hygiene education to children at schools and crèche centers in the communities it operates. NCWS has reached out to about 50,000 children as part of its School Water Program in 2019.


kiosks in India (March 2020)


kiosks being managed by Naandi currently (March 2020)


total people accessing water daily from these kiosks


Liters sold from these kiosks (FY 2019-20)


kids in school program (2019-20)


people getting training in WASH program (FY 2019-20)


Student, Jhajjar, Haryana, India

“My name is Dalaya, I live in the village of Jhajjar. I was responsible for collecting water for my family. It was a long walk from my house to community water well and I needed to walk the distance daily and carry heavy water jars. Sometimes I was missing class as collecting the water run took a lot of time and energy.

Today there is a Naandi water kiosk in my village, very close to my house, and my mother goes and buys water there. The water is safe and affordable. It tastes good too. My mother has more time now, so she took on sewing, to have some income and support the family. I’m a very good student and now I’m never late to school anymore.”