Climbing up the Water Ladder toward SDG 2030: Assessing Drinking Water Access in the Tea Gardens of Darjeeling, West Bengal

Background: Sustainable development goal (SDG) Target 6.1 aspires to ensure universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all by 2030.To track progress, the World Health Organization/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program (JMP) developed the "water service ladder, " a framework that assesses drinking water services based on their accessibility, availability, and safety.Objectives: This study aimed to assess the level of household access to safely managed and basic drinking water services in the tea garden communities of the Darjeeling district, using the JMP water ladder framework.Materials and methods: A community-based, cross-sectional study was conducted over 8 months in 20 randomly selected tea gardens in the Darjeeling district, West Bengal.A total of 320 households were surveyed using a predesigned, pretested questionnaire adapted from the JMP core questions.The primary respondent in each household was the individual responsible for water collection.Cluster sampling and probability proportional to size methods were employed for garden selection.Results: Among the surveyed households, 27.5% had access to safely managed drinking water, 32.8% used basic services, 5.9% relied on limited services, and 33.8% depended on unimproved sources.Unimproved water use was higher in both hilly (46.1%) and plain (33.8%) regions.However, safely managed water sources were more common in hilly areas (34.4%), while the plains had a greater share of households using basic services (44.3%).These regional differences were statistically significant (p < 0.001).Conclusions: Access to safely managed water in the tea gardens of Darjeeling remains below national and state averages.To meet SDG 6.1, urgent and context-sensitive efforts are needed to improve water infrastructure, ensure safe access, and address geographical disparities in these underserved communities.