NEWS UP - India

NEWS UP promotes low-carbon growth by reducing urban carbon footprints in India with renewable energy, water resource governance and by capping landfill emissions, setting an almost zero emission profile.

Fast facts:

Each NEWS UP facility has an annual emission reduction potential of of 35 to 40 tonnes of carbon equivalents;
This activity has also reduced water footprints by 70%;
The municipal solid waste management component of the facility mitigates methane emissions and landfill emissions.

The problem

The 2014 UN-Water report indicates that every 20 seconds a child dies due to poor sanitation and a billion man-hours are lost collecting potable water. There is also a large societal stigma about cooking food in biogas in the slums.

The solution

The activity promotes Non-Conventional Energy for Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (NEWS UP) in the slums of Kolkata metropolis in West Bengal, and as well in Guwahati and Shillong city in Northeastern India. This activity has built a facility that services about 1,200 households, providing safe drinking water with a water ATM that harvests surface water, fuel through a biogas generator and solid waste management.

The facility is completely sustained by a 10 kilowatt solar power unit. It has a near-zero emission and zero-effluent status and its revenue is linked to a financial mechanism with a break-even period of 52 months. Community governance of natural resources and the re-financing mechanism is managed by Joint Liability Groups from the slums. The facility has the potential to finance another such unit every fifth year.

Helping the planet

Each facility has an annual emission reduction potential of of 35 to 40 tonnes of carbon equivalents. Household emissions have also been reduced by 67%.

Helping people

All slum dwellers now have access to safe drinking water, improving their health conditions. Youths now have an alternative economic opportunity from micro utility delivery services of water, renewable energy, organic manure and recycled products. Women saves about four hours a day by not collecting drinking water and they can now invest their time in other activities like child care or education.

Scaling Up

After successful implementation in Kolkata this project has been scaled up by the World Bank in Northeastern India through their Development Marketplace Initiative. In Guwahati, it is catering to more than 700 households and 500 households in Shillong. It can even be split into smaller sizes to cater to different beneficiaries. The financial model has a break-even period of 3.5 to 4 years and can “self-scale up” every fifth year.