Garhwal, the home of many rivers, perennial springs and streams, is in a paradoxical situation as there is still scarcity of water in many areas. In this region, women are the major force, managing their homes, taking care of their children and elderly, farming and tending to their animals.

Water, a major resource for all domestic and farming activities, is not available in many areas making a women's life a never-ending trek to acquire water, fuel and fodder. The water they have access to is not always of clean or safe quality and forms the source of many diseases.

Sanitary facilities are also lacking in these villages. RDI is acting as a facilitator to alleviate the situation and has addressed the issues of safe drinking water and environmental sanitation with involvement of the community using the community participatory demand driven approach. Various activities were planned and undertaken to alleviate the problems of water and sanitation in the state. These are:

* Formation of village water and sanitation committees
* Formation of self help groups
* Training imparted to village maintenance workers. Other trainings undertaken were operation training, maintenance training, chairman and treasurer training, SHG's training and HESA, MCH & Income generation trainings. Each VWSC (Village Water & sanitation committee) comprises 7-10 members & each SHG comprises 10- 20 members, that is around 30 members were trained per village.
* Capacity building for sustainable local self governance.
* Adoption of rural low cost technologies for sanitation to economize the consumption of water.
* Awareness created towards sanitation, personal hygiene, domestic hygiene and environmental sanitation.
* Waste Disposal
* Organic Farming
* Sustainability of source via Catchment Area Protection
* Promotion of agricultural support services

Projects Undertaken:

1. Swajal
2. Sanitation Project in the mountainous region of Garhwal region
3. Himothhan
4. Feasibility study for Himmothhan phase II
5. Water Mills Project
6. Development of water and sanitation resource centre
7. Total Sanitation Campaign

Ongoing project:

1. Sector Program which is currently running in the districts of Dehradun, Tehri & Uttarkashi.