Even after almost 70 years since India’s independence, many remote villages have highly contaminated water sources with extremely high levels of dissolved solids, fluoride, iron, arsenic, and other toxic components. Specifically, Telangana and A.P. have high fluoride
levels of up to 10 mg/l (against tolerable levels of 1mg/l) in drinking water sources – both surface and underground. The districts affected are Nalgonda, Mahaboobnagar, Medak, Nizamabad, Ranga Reddy, Warangal, Khammam, Kurnool, Anantapur, and Guntur, Prakasam, Krishna, Srikakulam, Godavari, Chittoor, Nellore, Kadapa, Vizag, and others.

In order to tackle the delivery of clean drinking water problem effectively, the IIT Bombay Alumni Association’s Hyderabad Chapter first identified badly affected villages, specifically with high fluoride and dissolved solid levels in the water, as well as those contaminated with bacteria that creep in due to bad or lack of any sanitation. It planned to set up several CDWPs in badly affected areas not touched by any governmental or nongovernmental agencies. In order to make these plants successful, the volunteer group decided to strictly follow the following criteria: