In many Indian villages muddy, unclean water is shared by buffaloes & people alike. 85% of India’s population depends on ground water. Groundwater in one-third of India’s 600 districts is not fit for drinking as the concentration of fluoride, iron, salinity and arsenic exceeds the tolerance levels. There are 1.42 million small towns in India, 1,96,813 of which are affected by chemical contamination of water. Thousands of villages have no water source within two miles. Nearly one million children in India die of diarrhea each year as a result of drinking unsafe water. (UNICEF/WHO. 2008). The lack of access to water in rural India is staggering and often life threatening. Old men, young mothers and little children must spend long hours each day, traveling miles, often in harsh weather, carrying heavy buckets of dirty water, their only source of survival. CBN has been providing drinking water to people around the world by digging water wells for the last 50 years.
CBN Foundation through its partner - Operation Blessing India (OBI) digs an average of 500 bore wells annually and has dug over 8000 wells thus far. Every year more than 1,72,000 people are benefited by this effort. When terrain makes drilling impossible, cisterns are built to collect rain water and provide for a family of ten.
Because of the generous hearts of CBN partners we have been able to drastically improve the lives of many by bringing potable water right into their villages. Better health and more time for productive work and an education have begun to transform their lives.