Where Does Water Come From?
Rivers, groundwater, and rain — the three places cities get their water, and why some cities run out.
For curious minds
How does a city actually work?
Four animated series for school students and young learners. Each episode is under 8 minutes, designed to be shown in a classroom or watched on a phone. Based on the TU Delft Sanitary Engineering curriculum, adapted for general audiences.
Series 1: Follow the Drop
How Dirty Water Becomes Clean
A trip through a water treatment plant: chemicals, and the invisible creatures that help clean water.
The Pipe Journey
How water travels hundreds of kilometres through pipes, pumps, and towers to reach your tap.
What’s Actually in Your Water?
Minerals, microbes, and medicines — what treatment plants can and cannot remove.
Series 2: What’s Underground?
The City You Never See
Everything under a city street — water pipes, sewers, cables — and the engineers who design them.
Where Does It Go When You Flush?
Follow a flush through the sewer network — gravity, gradient, and what happens when pipes get blocked.
Why Cities Flood
When more rain falls than the drains can carry — how engineers calculate rainfall, design drains, and why cities still flood.
Designing Drainage for a New City
How engineers plan a city’s sewer system and why getting it wrong costs lives decades later.
Series 3: The Clean-Up Crew
What is Wastewater Treatment?
Everything under a city street — water pipes, sewers, cables — and the engineers who design them.
What Happens to the Sludge?
The solid stuff left after treatment — how it gets dried, turned into fertiliser, or converted into biogas.
Bacteria Are Your Friends
How billions of invisible organisms eat the waste in sewage — the biology of wastewater treatment.
Can We Drink Recycled Water?
Treated wastewater is already in many taps. How clean can it get?
Series 4: Build a Better City
Water System for 1 Million People
Source, treat, and distribute water for a fictional city of one million. What are the trade-offs?
Why Did This City Flood?
A case study in urban flooding — examine the drainage plan, spot the design flaw, and fix it.
The Sewer Death Problem
Why do people still die in sewers today? Map the failure and eliminate manual entry.
The City of 2050
Water scarcity, climate change, 10 billion people. How do engineers design for a world that doesn’t exist yet?
Academic foundation
These videos are based on the Sanitary Engineering open courseware from Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, adapted for general audiences. The original course covers drinking water supply, sewerage, and wastewater treatment at Master’s level. View the original course →
Sources
Everything on this website has a source
Every statistic, every legal entitlement, every penalty figure listed on Saatchi is drawn from a government document, court order, or official scheme guideline. We do not estimate. We cite. Download any document below to verify it yourself.
Legislation
Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013
The primary legislation. Defines manual scavenging, prohibits the practice, and establishes the full rehabilitation entitlement framework — including identification surveys, one-time payments, skill training, and housing support.
View document →Supreme Court Orders
Dr. Balram Singh & Ors. vs Union of India & Ors.
Source for the ₹30 lakhs compensation figure on this website. Updated the 2014 direction. Also directed: ₹20 lakhs for permanent disability, ₹10 lakhs for any disability, mandatory contractor licence cancellation after a sewer death.
View order →Safai Karamchari Andolan vs Union of India
The original direction for ₹10 lakhs compensation (now superseded by the 2023 order). Also mandated identification surveys in every state and district — surveys that remain largely incomplete a decade later.
View order →Government Schemes
SRMS — Self Employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers
Source for the ₹40,000 one-time payment, ₹3,000/month training stipend, and ₹15 lakh business loan with 50% subsidy listed on the Worker Rights page.
View scheme →NAMASTE — National Action for Mechanized Sanitation Ecosystem
Source for PPE kit entitlement, PM-JAY health insurance, and occupational training provisions for both sewer workers and waste pickers listed on the Worker Rights and Waste Picker Rights pages.
View scheme →VISVAS — Vishwakarma Interest Subvention Yojana for Safai Karamcharis
Source for the 5% interest subvention on loans up to ₹5 lakhs (individual) or ₹10 lakhs (SHG). No income ceiling applies to Safai Karamcharis under this scheme.
View scheme →SUY — Swachhta Udyami Yojana
Source for waste picker enterprise loan provisions and sanitation equipment financing listed on the Waste Picker Rights page.
View scheme →Data & Reports
Annual Report 2023–24
State-wise data on sewer deaths, compensation disbursed, and scheme uptake. Source for the 1,224 recorded deaths and 540 deaths with no FIR filed statistics shown on the Legal Aid landing page.
View report →State-wise Sewer Death Data — Court Records Compilation
Source for the 252 deaths in Tamil Nadu figure — the highest of any state. Includes district-level breakdowns, FIR status, compensation paid vs. owed, and employer type.
View report →