Achieving a sustainable behaviour change is a crucial step towards dealing with the water & sanitation crisis in the country.The Citizen First Campaign on Water Supply Sector Reforms and accountability has strived to bring in greater transparency and public participation in the government decision-making processes. The key achievement in this process has been the building of the capacity of the communities, particularly, disadvantaged and marginalised, in identifying their problem and enabling them to develop their capacities for negotiations with concerned stakeholders.

In light of the foregoing, the second phase of the project was developed which proposed to scale up this initiatives to other areas and then mobilizing the BVMs to create a city level platform (vertical expansion), which will demand the water and sanitation rights of the poor in the city. The past intervention has given the confidence that solution to water, sanitation and hygiene problems in Hyderabad is possible with wide participation, increased availability of information, awareness and empowerment of poor people. To achieve this the project sought to undertake five different interrelated set of activities with distinct focus.

1. Research and knowledge: Restructuring the BVM is one of the important agendas for the proposed project wherein focus will be made to increase its number and create vertical layers within its governance structure. In depth research will be carried out in preparing a charter for BVM laying down organizational structures, rules and responsibilities, protocols, women participation, membership fees of the BVM members at slum, cluster and city level.

2.Capacity building: BVM members will be capacitated to carry forward the activities by their own after the project is officially over. Training will be imparted to the BVM members on articulating their rights towards basic services of water and sanitation, judicial activism, filling petitions in courts, preparing newsletters etc.

3. School children and its management: School sanitation where BVM will be involved as part of the school management committee to take up issues on functional toilets, permanent drinking water supply for the school, environmental sanitation, greening the schools, kids cabinet, effective utilization of funds etc. Campaign materials like newsletter, pamphlets, and brochure will be used towards advocating the issues.

4.Pilot Implementation: Based on the previous experience on the nuances of urabn community, solid waste management consisting of source segregation, collection and vermi-compositing were implemented. Hygiene hardware such as hand washing facilities, drinking water facilities was constructed in partnership with the stakeholder and handed over to the community and school. Efforts to develop a business model of BVM at a cluster level where an effort will be made to set up market linkages. This will be for potential support for financial sustainability of BVM. This community led platform also envision in income generation, intervene support to entire basthi level issues other than WASH, urban agriculture.

5.Documentation and reporting: Process documentation and periodic reporting will be done all through the project period on the likelihood of success based on existing networking, past experience, criticality of issues and support of direct and indirect stakeholders like political representatives, urban local bodies, community etc.