The first Workshop of SWE Alliance centered on Impact of FSSAI Regulation amendment dated January 29, 2019 on Water Vending Machines (or, 40,000-50,000 SWEs) set up by the Government, NGOs, private players and philanthropists. At the event, perspectives were sought from the present sector stakeholders. While the SWEs are totally inclined to ensure compliance to the regulation to ensure quality of drinking water, they also envisage an impact on the costs and expansion timelines in the process of compliance, thereby impacting the SWE sector sustainability and expansion plans significantly. The group felt that the amendment has left some ambiguities in terms of compliance requirements and hence, decided to present a joint sector representation to the FSSAI to put forth the concerns and queries.

The SWE Alliance Calendar drafted for the Workshop 1 for deliberations was shared as a reference material and further discussed with all participants from seven SWE practitioner organizations. Three themes including FSSAI regulation on water quality impacting SWE intervention, such as foreseen application of GST on unpackaged drinking water and regulation and control of groundwater extraction for treatment by SWEs were discussed and welcomed by the participants. The participants were informed and thanked for sharing their organization profiles and case histories as lessons from the field, which can now be easily accessed to from the SWE Alliance website as well as on its Facebook page