32
HEALTH AND SANITATION
India’s population expected
to overtake China’s by 2028
By Essay submission by Julie Slama for IAPMO
‘Of all the IAPMO Group’s core competencies, which division
do you feel is making the greatest impact, and why? ‘
Russ Chaney
In the spirit of the sharing
of unique experiences
that shape the plumbing
industries in our respective
nations, the following essay
won third place in IAPMO’s
annual Scholarship
Essay Competition. First
introduced in 2009 and
open to all high school,
university, and trade school
students, the competition
has elicited entries from
across the world.
Written by Julie Slama
of Yale University in New
Haven, Connecticut.
According to UN estimates, India possesses
three of the world’s top-10 megacities in Delhi,
Mumbai, and Calcutta, with these cities rapidly
developing into advanced urban centres through
infrastructure improvements. of cities across the country. The lack of plumbing
infrastructure and a trained, certified workforce have
long been issues for those from India, where 7.5% of
deaths each year can be attributed directly to water
and sanitation issues.
By taking into account India’s massive population base
and growing need for plumbers, it is clear that the
International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical
Officials’ (IAPMO) branch of Indian Code Adoption
& Training is making the greatest impact, while still
embodying the goals that IAPMO envisioned upon its
creation in 1926. Before IAPMO’s emergence onto the scene, no
architecture or engineering course of study in India
offered a diploma or degree in plumbing, ensuring that
most people claiming to be plumbers were actually
‘casual labourers’, who have learned their chosen field
through experience and without any sort of certification
or formal training.
India’s improvements to infrastructure come at a
time when they are desperately needed. According to
a study published in the Christian Science Monitor,
nearly 640 million Indians, or 54% of the 1.1 billion-
person population, lack access to toilets or other
sanitation facilities. IAPMO India was founded in 2007 with offices at
Bengaluru and Pune, with the goal of using the latest
and most comprehensive plumbing codes, training,
and education programmes for code-based plumbing
installations. It has responded to the enormous demand
and growth of its services within the plumbing domain
by focusing its efforts to better serve the industry by
also incorporating mechanical and product certification.
In some areas, the situation has become so desperate
that village women in some states have coined the
phrase, “No toilet, no bride”. Further, 60% of the world’s
population without access to toilets and proper sanitation
facilities lives in India, where defecating in the open is
seen as commonplace.
In 2012, Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh
declared that he intended to rid the country of open
defecation within a decade, a declaration backed
through funding by the Cabinet Committee on
Economic Affairs. This money has been spent bringing
toilets to those in settings without current access,
producing a desperate need for plumbers to design,
implement, and maintain a steady system for hundreds
October 2017 Volume 23 I Number 8
The educational aspect of IAPMO’s efforts in India
has been revolutionary, as the Plumbing Education to
Employment Programme (PEEP) is being offered at more
than 25 educational and training institutions across the
country. The curriculum has been developed to define
the quickly evolving industry and train the workers to
bring them on par with global practices. The Mechanical
Education to Employment Programme (MEEP) also
promises to bring about similar change to the country’s
mechanical industry.
Along with these two programmes, IAPMO’s system
of conformity and certification programmes are now
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