Background

India continues to grapple with a water crisis of staggering proportions. According to a recent report published by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF in August 2025, 1 in 4 people globally still lack access to clean drinking water. Even as India is home to plenty of freshwater resources, millions of people in the country struggle to find access to clean drinking water. Such scarcity is the result of pollution and climate change, which inflict devastating impacts on individuals from underserved communities.

A lack of safe water access has disproportionate harmful effects even on those without access to it, creating vicious cycles of poor health, lost opportunity, and economic hardships. Children who lack safe access have their futures put at risk. This is because access to clean water is at the heart of healthy development: irregular access to water or drinking unsafe water, in addition to causing severe health harms, also impairs learning outcomes for students. 

While there has been progress from 2015 to 2024, and over 961 million people have gained access to drinking water, there is a stark disparity in national progress that hides behind this sweeping global figure. Many high-income countries have achieved over 99% of safe drinking water access, while lower-middle-income countries would need to double their rate of current progress, and low-income countries would need a sevenfold increase in order to be on track with this goal. Even within nations, there are wide urban and rural disparities as well as poverty-related gaps in access in urban areas. Further, these trajectories evince that the current pace of progress is simply not enough to keep the promise of safe water and sanitation, in tandem with the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6. 

According to a report by Praja Foundation, in Mumbai, there are glaring disparities in water access and sanitation in the slum areas. There are over 2,000 slum clusters in the city, and non-slum areas get the recommended 135 litres per capita per day, while slum areas only get 45 litres. This leads to a dependency on alternative sources, which are often contaminated sources. 

Access to safe water should not be a struggle. Such intense struggle for what is a basic necessity of life is deeply dehumanizing. It is in this light that The Blue Project seeks to make a foray to enhance water equity for the most vulnerable communities.