Editorial

The theme for this year’s World Water Day is “Water and jobs”. On behalf of UN — Water, year’s observance of the day on March 22 is co-ordinated this year by International Labour Organisation (ILO), the UN entity that promotes rights at work, encourages decent employment opportunities and enhance social protection. The theme highlights how water and jobs interact to transform people’s lives. Almost half of world’s 1.5 billion workers are working in water related sectors and nearly all their jobs depend on water and those that ensure their safety. According to an estimate, 95% of the jobs in agriculture sector, 30% of the jobs in industry sector and 10% of jobs in service sector are heavily dependent on water.

It has been estimated that 2 million work related deaths happen every year, of which 17% is water related, which means that every hour 38 workers die from water related diseases. Water and sanitation have strong impact on workers’ lives and health. Water is a prime natural resources. It has got strong linkage with three pillars of sustainable development namely economic, social and environmental. The basic provision of adequate water, sanitation and hygiene services at home and in workplace contributes to a healthy and productive population and workforce, with benefits to cost ratio as high as 7 to 1 for basic water and sanitation services in developing countries. Water can contribute to greener economy and sustainable development. But for this to happen, we need more qualified workers. Sustainable water management creates an enabling environment for long term employment opportunites to work in dignity, equality and safety.

This issue of the journal contains seven assorted articles. Other usual features like “IPHE News”, “Our Members”, “Notes and News” have also been incorporated in this issue. Election of office bearers for 2016- 2017 was held on 29.03.2016 at the IPHE (Hq.) office at Kolkata. A complete list of office bearers for 2016-2017 has been published in this issue of the journal.

May I once again request our learned readers to offer their valuable suggestions for improving various features of the journal.