Until recently, the 40,000-odd residents of Shelar, a village in Bhiwandi, were a harried lot. For most of their life, they had been denied the most basic human right - access to clean, drinking water. Leaks in their pipeline network meant that villagers received contaminated water, and that too, with poor force.

If that wasn't bad enough, cases of residents suffering from water-borne diseases had become commonplace. After decades of neglect at the hands of the authorities, the Shelar Gram Panchayat and villagers finally decided to take matters in their own hands, a few years ago. The result is a water-purifying plant that was installed recently, and which has brought a fresh lease of life to its people.