“Water is the most violated natural resource. If things continue to go the way they are, it won’t be long before taps in India run completely dry, and our cities turn worse than Cape town,” remarks Pune’s noted water conservationist and a retired army person, Col Shashikant Dalvi who has spent 16 years of his life educating about and initiating Rain Water Harvesting [RWH] systems across his city, Pune.
His fear is not unfounded.
Central Ground Water Board (CGWB), under the Ministry of Water Resources, published a report in 2018 which found that the groundwater level in India has depleted by 61 per cent from 2007 to 2017.
And, according to the 72-year-old, one of the primary reasons behind the water crisis is the decrease in percolation rate owing to rising urbanisation. Speaking to The Better India (TBI) Col. Dalvi says, “The rising population in most metro cities has pushed concretisation several notches higher than usual. As we are cutting more and more trees and building more concrete roads, the surface of the ground is becoming less absorbent, causing the percolation rate of rainwater to go down. This, in turn, is drying up the bore-wells and thus creating the water crisis,” says Col. Dalvi.
This realisation dawned when he moved to Pune after retirement.
Viman Nagar area was a fairly new locality when Col Dalvi bought a flat in a housing complex there in 2002. It did not take long for him to realise that beneath all the modern amenities persisted severe water problems. To satisfy the needs of 57 flats in the complex, they had to get three big water tankers despite utilising the corporation supply every day which cost them an extra amount of Rs 25,000 per month.
“The high expenditure soon became a concern, and I began to find ways to combat. That was when I remembered from experience of the army days, how rural families in Rajasthan, sustainably conserved water through a simpler form of RWH. Thus I decided to implement it here on a large scale,” shared the expert.
This prompted him to start a rain-water harvesting consultancy, Parjanya, in March 2002, thus ushering a tide of change against the water shortage in the city.
“Water has been exploited for decades and is left in a pitiful condition. But rainwater harvesting (RWH) could be one of the few ways of restoration, and when I realised it, I began researching and working towards it. RWH is a silver lining, and we must do our best to use it to its best potential.”
With his relentless efforts, the housing society—the Lunkad Greenland 2 CHS—soon emerged as an example for the rest of the city and the state. The residents of the society installed a rooftop RWH system in a 12,000 sq feet area which began to yield 9 lac litres of water a year.
“In a year we became completely tanker free, as well as the first multi-storey housing society in the state to have such a system. Owing to this the water yield from our borewell increased from half an hour to almost 9 hours a day. And, what makes RWH even better is its cost-effectiveness,” said Col Dalvi.
The rooftop installment cost the society Rs 52,000.
As per Col Dalvi, RWH is a one-time investment, and we can reap its benefits for decades with minimal maintenance. And in return, it can save from 30 to 50 per cent treated drinking water in a household, and 80 per cent in a large commercial building.
Another resident of the society, 46-year-old Rajeev Singh, added, “It’s fortunate to be living in a society which is completely tankerless, especially in Viman Nagar, which is known for water shortage. While other societies here spent lakhs on tankers, we reap the benefits of RWH while positively contributing to the environment. I have another flat in Wagholi area and the regular water woes there make me realise how relieved I am to be staying here.”
The success of Parjanya’s RWH idea with the residential society garnered widespread interest and praise. In addition to many engineers, even National Water Academy, Pune included a visit to the society as part of their course syllabus to study the functioning of this project.
The organisation, with the help of several governmental and private agencies, has been reaching out to several institutes to spread awareness. According to Col Dalvi, one of the major challenges was changing public perception regarding water conservation.
“It is comparatively easy to educate the youth as they are not conditioned as the adults. The dependency on water tankers is so ingrained in most of us that thinking of sustainable alternatives is still farfetched,” added Col Dalvi.
Since 2003, he has initiated almost 650 projects across the country, including hospitals, colleges, schools, multi-stories complexes, industries, and government buildings among others.
Recently, he completed RWH campaigns and implementation in 100 villages of Madhya Pradesh and has begun work in Maharashtra’s Beed district.
What started as an initiative of an informed and socially responsible senior citizen has now become a state-wide movement offering a drying state a better tomorrow.
“I don’t want RWH to be a novel initiative by a few but a regular and common practice that touches each corner of the country. Only then can we bring back our natural resource to its original self and secure the precious future for our children!” he concludes.
At a glance, Venugopal Kumpalli, 39, is a hard-working IT professional in Bengaluru, the Silicon Valley of India.
Like many others, he wakes up every morning and battles with the treacherous traffic of the city, to reach his office in time, with aspirations to make his mark in the corporate world.
Yet, amidst the crowd, something sets him apart from the rest.
He belongs to the rare breed of people, who, when faced with social problems, don’t complain or wait for someone else to come with solutions. They step forward to volunteer and bring about a change.
One such problem that irked Venugopal was the degradation of the city’s once beautiful lakes, to stinking cesspools.
This is the story of how that annoyance, drove him to lead a dual life—an IT professional on weekdays, and a lake warden on weekends, much like the superheroes of pop culture!
Becoming a community hero
A resident of Electronic City, Venugopal would pass the Bellandur lake everyday en-route to his workplace.
Unlike scores of people who took the same route, the sight of the frothing, decaying lake bothered him deeply and made him wonder if the Maragondanahalli lake in his neighbourhood would suffer the same fate.
“I like to run and cycle, and every morning when I would go out, I would encounter the sorry state of the lake. What could have been a natural treasure and a common hang-out spot for people, would lie hidden under the garbage and wild overgrowth, inhabited by drunkards who would treat it as their open-air bar. Encountering a drunken brawl, there was common. It had become a perilous spot, and many had advised me to change my route. But, I didn’t want to do it, so instead of changing my route, I decided to change the state of the lake altogether!” said Venugopal, while speaking to The Better India. Hence, in July 2017, he began his journey of reviving life into the lake.
Once his mind was made up, the first step was to seek proper permissions from the Hulimangala Panchayat.
“The usual attitude is such that when people litter or cause harm to a public place like a lake, no one turns to look, but the moment someone steps up to change the scenario for good and clean the space, heaps of questions are asked. So to answer them, I researched a little and got to know that a citizen can apply for the position of a lake warden, who can serve as its watchdog. All you needed was passion and Indian citizenship. So with my documents, I approached the panchayat, who before then were not even aware of such a position,” he added.
Once the permissions were sorted, he began to survey the area and found out that the lake was in a far worse condition he had originally anticipated.
Covered under the bed of dense foliage and garbage, the lake wasn’t even visible from the road and so cleaning the space was a big challenge for which Venugopal needed the right equipment.
“I didn’t have any experience or knowledge about what to do, so I started researching and stumbled upon a Facebook group of lake enthusiasts where the members guided me virtually.”
With their guidance, he hit the Chickpet market and spent approximately Rs 14,000 purchasing equipment like a bush cutting machine, log cutter, hedge trimmer, bush cutting triangular blade and a grass cutter string, among other items.
He states that till this point, he was essentially a mind buried in technological systems, and his next challenge was to physically use the machines.
“Understanding the nitty-gritty of the mechanism of the equipment, like setting the gear ratio or even repairing it, in case of break down, was all new to me, but I was ready to learn,” he said.
Once the mechanism was understood, this lake warden then spent three months single-handedly cutting down the dense foliage and cleaning a stretch of 400 to 500 meters.
In order to clean the water, he even built a boat out of PVC pipes and went into the lake wearing life jackets, as he was a non-swimmer.
But this wasn’t the only challenge, as he had to encounter the drunkards who frequented the spot are weren’t happy with the new developments.
“One evening, I was busy cutting the bushes when a drunk man attacked me. He wanted me to stop. The situation was such that I had to stop the work on that day. Next day, I visited the police station, filed a complaint and continued my work. Hurdles like this did not bring my spirit down,” he says.
His persistence and hard work soon began to be noticed, as neighborhood children began to join his struggle.
“Once the cleaning was done, people began to notice that under the dump, there existed a beautiful lake waiting to be revived.
But, before the adults, it’s the children who lend their hand to help. So, to get them more interested, I gave them colour sprinklers and brushes to paint the tree trunks.
Once they began to have fun, their parents joined in, and with the consolidated effort, we successfully rejuvenated one stretch of the lake!” he remarked happily.
Out of the 17-acre area of the lake, 14-acres have been rejuvenated with more than 200 trees and almost 500 shrubs planted across the space.
Adorned with flora and natural gift of fauna that often arrives at its shores, the lake is now a sight to behold. Venugopal hopes that with time and proper funding, the rest of it will also find its way back to life.
“There was a time when the Maragondanahalli lake was an invisible dump frequented by drunkards. Today it is idyllic space where families come every morning and evening to enjoy the fresh breath of air. This is my true victory,” concludes the unsung hero.
It was a day announced by the South African government last year, when the authorities would turn off all taps, forcing people to collect water from communal collection points.
Since the announcement, the apocalyptic day in the city has only been postponed.
From residents standing in buckets while showering to reuse the water, cutting down on flushes to recycling water from the washing machine, several combinations of measures were adopted to avert the severe water crisis.
If there is one lifelong lesson to be learnt from Cape Town’s situation, it is to treat water as the most precious resource by conserving, reusing and recycling it.
If you wonder how your contribution can resolve a major crisis like this, remember that every drop makes an ocean. Take a pledge on this World Water Day (March 22) and start now.
This year’s theme, ‘Leaving no one behind’, is an adaptation of the United Nation’s central promise of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which says everyone should benefit.
Here’s are seven ways in which you can follow the theme to save and conserve water:
Reuse Water
Reusing water can cut down your money bills
The best way to develop an efficient water cycle is to reuse it whenever and wherever possible. For instance, you can collect water from washing veggies and fruits and reuse it for watering the garden.
Using recycled water for flushing can help bring down your water bills by 30-40 per cent. Collect water from your RO filters in a container and reuse it to wash utensils or mop the floor.
Trap rainwater by installing Rain Water Harvesting systems and reuse it during summers when taps in many Indian cities run dry. It’s not as expensive as you think and can even be retrofitted on an existing house.
Reduce Consumption of Water Intensive Grains
Millets grow in poor soil conditions and require lesser water
In 2017, the Tamil Nadu Agricultural Department was encouraging farmers to cultivate less water-intensive crops such as millets and pulses in arid areas as the state was facing a severe drought.
Compared to refined grains like rice and wheat, millets are nutritionally and ecologically superior. They do well in poor soils with low irrigation and zero chemical inputs. Introduce them in your diet and reduce the amount of water-intensive grains you consume. These crops can grow in poor soil conditions and require lesser water.
As against the requirement of 5,000 litres of water to grow one kilogram of rice, millets need hardly 250-300 litres, Prabhakar of the All India Co-ordinated Research Project on Small Millets, told The Hindu Business Line.
Not turning off the tap while brushing, washing your face, doing the dishes and so on are some reasons why 360 million litres of water is wasted every day in a city like Bengaluru. The best way to prevent this is to be conscious every time you open a tap.
While certain habits may take time to change, water aerators is a one-stop solution to the problem of running taps. Aerators save nearly 35-40 per cent of water per minute when compared to normal taps.
They are suitable for taps in the kitchen sink, wash basin, and other utilities. They don’t require a plumber and can easily be fitted to a tap, thus dispensing lesser water.
Composting, a process in which wet garbage is converted into manure, can help you save some money. With gardening increasingly becoming popular in the urban setup, water usage in homes with plants has also increased. By using your own manure, less water will be required.
Opt For Chemical-Free Products To Prevent Water Contamination
Choose eco-friendly products to avoid water contamination
Have you ever wondered what happens to your sanitary napkin, shampoo bottle or plastic toothbrush after you discard it? It ends up in a landfill or in water bodies, either way, polluting the environment. The synthetic ingredients contaminate water bodies and affect marine life.
Ditch those conventional home care and personal products for eco-friendly ones. Choose from a whole range of sustainable products here.
Laundry Wash Only When Fully Loaded
Use non-toxic detergent
Laundry is a necessary and unavoidable chore, but wasting water doesn’t have to be. Run your washing machine only when it is fully loaded to save on water and soap. Bonus points if you use an eco-friendly, non-toxic detergent.
Install water-saving showerheads to cut down 80% water usage
Did you know that showerheads, on an average, use seven litres of water per minute? Even if you have a bath for five minutes, you have used 35 litres of water during a bath. Try to bathe with one bucket of water, which roughly stores 12-18 litres.
You can also install water-saving showerheads to cut down 80 per cent of your water usage and reduce energy consumption. Buy them here.
According to The Water Gap – WaterAid’s State of the World’s Water 2018 report, a whopping 844 million in the world are deprived of safe and clean drinking water. 19 per cent of these reside in India.
Access to safe drinking water has always been a grave problem due to several reasons including water pollution, a lack of sewage management, and growing industrialisation.
A victim to such a sad state of affairs were two college friends, Anto P Biju and Thomas Cyriac from Palai town of Kerala. In 2017, when they were on a day-trip, they were given dirty water when they asked for drinking water.
Recalling the incident, Anto tells The Better India,
We were travelling to another city on a bike and at one point, we took a break at a food joint on the highway. We had some refreshments and while consuming the water, we could see its dirty brown colour.
Being students of engineering at St Joseph’s College of Engineering and Technology, Anto and Thomas worked on inventions to solve every day problems.
Switching on their engineering minds, the duo decided to work on solving the problem of filthy water.
Anto P Biju and Thomas Cyriac
The first product developed was a pen that could detect the elements in the water. On putting the pen inside water, it would list water impurities and say whether the water was fit for consumption or not.
Though they received appreciation from the faculty and their classmates after the product was displayed at an innovation competition organised by Kerala Startup Mission, it was unsettling.
After we designed the special pen, we realised it wasn’t solving the problem. It only identified it. We needed to build something more concrete. So we embarked on another project, says Anto.
For nearly two years, the duo rigorously worked on building a prototype while balancing their academics. As many as 60 variations of water purifiers were designed and rejected. From dedicating several sleepless nights to reaching out to experts, a lot of hard work went behind inventing the cost-effective water purifier.
Taking inspiration from scientists at Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology in Bhubaneswar, the two friends completed the hitherto incomplete project of mini-cartridges that filter impure water using activated carbon.
In 2018, Anto and Thomas, both 21, officially registered their startup ‘Lamaara Technologies Private Ltd’. With this, their product was now ready to be introduced in the market.
They got a seed funding of Rs 2 lakh from the Kerala Startup Mission to develop the product.
How The Cartridge Works
The size of an index finger, the water purifier is an indigenous technology that filters harmful microorganisms. Pores that act as micro-reservoirs are fixed over a disc inside the cartridge. It eliminates foul smell, harmful metals and colours from the water. Moreover, the technology adds minerals that improve the immune system.
The result is water that is safe for drinking, according to the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). The BIS works under the of Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, Government of India.
The organic water filter can cleanse impure water up to 30 liters within a few hours. Every five years, the cartridge that costs around Rs 60, will have to be replaced.
Using activated carbon proved extremely economical for us as the manufacturing cost is merely Rs 10. The USP of this water purifier is that it is cost-effective and unlike other purifiers that are made from synthetic fibre, this one is organic, says Thomas.
Creating a Social Impact
The duo developed the technology around the time of the Kerala Floods of 2018 and it was put to test during the devastating event.
With thousands of people displaced and moved to relief camps overnight, they were already dealing with several problems, one of them being procuring clean drinking water.
After relentless rains, people were falling ill from drinking unclean water. We wanted to contribute and prepared a container and fixed the cartridge inside it, says Thomas.
Around 200 such purifiers that require no electricity, costing around Rs 2,000, were donated to relief camps set up in flood-affected areas of Kottayam district.
Lamaars donated 200 water purifiers during the Kerala floods
As the news about their initiative spread, several people showed interest in purchasing their product. In fact, investors approached them for funding. “We received an investment of Rs 4.5 crore to develop more such water purifiers and are currently working on multiple projects,” says Thomas.
So far, the startup has sold 200 water purifiers in the state, besides the ones donated during the floods.
Collect Dirty Water In A Bottle And Get Pure Water In Return
The final year engineering students are ready with their next invention–a bottle.
What makes their silicon bottle different from others is the water filter cartridge. The bottle has an in-built organic filter at the center-bottom, on the base. Its job is the same as the previously built water filter– to remove all impurities.
The iBo or ‘Intelligent Bottle’ has a three-layer filtration system that consists of Nano-fibre membrane, made with the help of nanotechnology. It will help to remove microorganisms such as bacteria and protozoa. Coconut activated carbon will be able to remove odour, chemicals and chlorine contents from the water.
The third stage of the filter consists of a mineral add-on feature that will add minerals to the water and make it slightly alkaline, so that it is beneficial for the health of the customer. The alkalinity of the water has the potential to kill viruses.
All one has to do is fill the bottle with any kind of water and the purifier will provide safe drinking water within minutes! The bottle is priced at Rs 600.
The idea behind developing the bottle is to tell people that they don’t need to buy costly non-portable water purifiers that occupy space in their house. Besides, the conventional purifiers are known for producing waste water post the purification process. The iBo can be carried everywhere and it comes to people’s rescue when they do not get clean water, says Anto.
The student startup has developed different versions of the bottle. The Alpha version comes with an application that is linked with the bottle. On filling the bottle, the app will show the ingredients or matter present in the water. The user can also fill in personal details like Body Mass Index, based on which, the app will remind the user to drink water to avoid dehydration.
The BETA version is the stainless steel bottle that is foldable, thus eliminating issues of space and weight. “Our customer target are school and college students. Even I have avoided carrying a water bottle because of lack of space in my bag,” says Anto.
In another couple of months, the duo will launch the bottle in the market.
The Way Forward
Keeping their grade up and working on the product hasn’t been easy for the two friends. But every failure has been a stepping stone to success. “A genuine concern from our respective parents, the pressure to score decent marks and pursuing our passion takes toll on us but it also gives us life learnings,” points out Anto.
He adds, “One of our biggest learnings was to develop an efficient team or to outsource the work. We had received an order of one lakh purifiers from a reputed bank but we were unable to distribute due to logistics. So, from then, we have outsourced the manufacturing process.”
As for their plans, the duo will soon appear for their final exams, after which they will start working out of Kochi.
“We plan to work on cartridge purifiers that will come in various sizes and capacities. Consumers will be able to fit these in their taps, bottles, and containers,” they sign off.
To know more about Lamaara’s products, contact Anto and Thomas at info@lamaara.in.
Imagine this: You just spent your hard earned money and purchased a new house. It has a small backyard to plant trees, satin finish tiles, walls painted in your favourite colours and a swanky kitchen.
But a few days later, washing clothes becomes hard as it requires more soap but using more soap leave a messy scum on the clothes that cannot be rinsed clean.
Meanwhile, your costly bathroom fittings and kitchenware appliances begin to turn black.
Your skin suddenly develops dryness causing an outbreak of acne. It leads to excess itching leaving the skin cracked.
Your first suspicion zeroes in on the water you receive. So, you obviously, you install an expensive water-purifying/softening device or boil large amounts of water before bathing.
The scenario that arises out of the usage of hard water is a widespread phenomenon in India. In fact, in 2018, 24 per cent of the areas in Bengaluru received hard water containing inorganic minerals like calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, bicarbonates, chlorides and sulphates reported The Economic Times.
Having faced a similar situation, two childhood friends in Hyderabad installed water softeners in their respective homes.
Rajesh Saraf and Uday Nadiwade discontinued using the softener plants due to the high maintenance cost.
Speaking to The Better India, Rajesh says,
Hard water problem is a pressing problem in most parts of India, and unfortunately we end up using it as it is or pays for very costly devices. It was high time we addressed this problem.
When there is a shortage of fresh water, water is then drawn from bore wells. This hard water is often used as utility water for bathing and cleaning purposes.
Having worked in product development and sales and marketing industry respectively, Rajesh and Uday took the matters in their own hands and started researching on developing a low-cost and environment-friendly solution to the hard water problem.
It took them almost a year, but it was worth the hard work and wait, says Uday, “There are already ample of treatment plants available in the market, but we didn’t want to develop just another plant that would be expensive further aggravating people’s woes.”
D’Cal company hopes to resolve hard water problems in India
Developing on their principles of ‘Better, Faster and Cheaper’, the two friends christened their product ‘BEFACH’. The product is for one-time use and doesn’t require any maintenance. As against the conventional plants that cost anything around 30,000, this device is priced at only Rs 3,600. The best part is that it can last for a year!
The device is ideal for household tanks with the annual consumption of 3 lakh litres of water.
How Does The Device Work
A regular water filter uses the traditional method of removing minerals like calcium and magnesium. The duo’s product, on the other hand, uses a food grade media or phosphates to remove the stickiness of calcium ions. This method breaks down the minerals ensuring that calcium does not stick to walls, buckets, or taps.
It is a hassle-free process as the installation doesn’t require any pipes, plumber or electricity.
All a user has to do is drop the bottle-shaped device in the water tank.
Explaining the benefits of the water softener, Rajesh says, “Besides being cost-effective, the device is also eco-friendly as there is no wastage and zero electricity consumed. In a conventional plant, around 20-30 per cent of the water is wasted in the softening process.”
The duo then launched their company, D’Cal, in July 2018.
The device is available on D’Cal’s website and other e-commerce platforms. The duo made sales close to one crore in the very first year of the launch. The highest demand was from states like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Gujarat.
However, Rajesh and Uday do not measure their success on the economic profit. For them, the positive feedback from the consumers is enough to keep them going.
A customer can boil 1 litre of regular bore water and D’Cal water for 15 minutes. The difference will be crystal clear, says Rajesh.
Padmanabhan, one of their customers who had purchased the product in November 2018 says, “Very easy to use and is hassle-free. You need not run after plumber. The new technology is perfect.”
Among the short-term goals, the startup aims to multiply its sales this year 4-5 times.
Future Plans
Meanwhile, Uday and Rajesh are also working on filtered drinking water bottles. They aim to develop a nano-fibre technology which will be fitted inside the water bottle. The technology will filter any water, thus giving the consumer fresh water.
The idea behind this product is to provide consumers with an easy way to provide safe drinking water. Water can be filled from anywhere, and the filter will clean the water, says Uday.
This new filtered bottle is also expected to help people save money. The major cost of potable drinking water is logistics. This bottle will eliminate the logistics cost of water and reduce the cost of drinking water from Rs. 15/liter to less than 20paise /litre. The life of the filter bottle is expected to last for one year. So instead of buying bottled water, the consumers can use D’cal’s bottle.
They are also working on coming up with a synthetic powder for treating wastewater in hotels and restaurants. The powder will help reduce water wastage by 80-90 per cent. The filtered utility water can be reused for washing and cleaning purposes.
If you wish to get in touch with D’Cal, email them at www.dcal.co.in
When Pawan Seksaria from Mumbai received a WhatsApp forward two years ago, his first instinct was to ignore it, considering the prevalence of fake news that circulates on the app.
But one part of him wanted to believe in the noble initiative by a fellow Mumbaikar to save the Earth’s most precious resource—water.
“If you want to prevent the earth from running out of water and secure the future of our children, take a step now! Contact Alpa Gala if you wish to install a water aerator in your tap. The device will reduce water wastage by 60%. The installation and device will be for free,” the message read.
Setting his doubts aside, Pawan contacted Alpa, a resident of Andheri, a suburb in the sprawling city.
The very next day, a plumber rang his doorbell on Napsean Road. He installed the water aerator in the tap and left without charging a penny.
Although a little surprised, Pawan was impressed and immediately forwarded the message to his near and dear ones.
It is amazing how Alpa is doing this selfless deed and making a huge difference in Mumbai. Gradually, this initiative is taking concrete shape, and I am proud to be a part of her movement, Pawan tells The Better India.
Like Pawan, more than 7,000 families in Mumbai have installed the water aerators with guidance from Alpa Gala. These devices claim to throw up three litres of water per minute instead of eight.
The 41-year-old homemaker was inspired by her brother-in-law, Prashant Gala. In 2017, when he was looking for water aerators online, Alpa wondered how many houses in the city had the water-saving device.
Alpa Gala is on a mission to cut water wastage in Mumbai
In no time, the thought escalated into a mission to provide them to as many families in the city as possible.
Speaking about her mission, Alpa says,
Saving water is our most cherished principle. At home, we take several steps to reduce water wastage like using buckets instead of shower heads, making sure our taps are running slow and so on.
Since she had always been mindful about saving water, she started telling her relatives about the device. Soon, they all installed these in their homes. The word also got around in her social circles and WhatsApp groups.
While many people preach about social causes and environment-friendly steps, very few take it upon themselves to invest their time, efforts and money.
Water crisis is inevitable and the only way to save our future is to use the existing water effectively. Many of us will not realise this, considering we get water throughout the day. Countries preparing for Zero Day is highly alarming, and we need to wake up. I am doing this as social service, and thus an extra effort will not hurt, she says.
With financial support from her husband and brother-in-law, Alpa provided the aerators for free across the city in the first year. But soon, she noticed that people did not value them.
I came across so many cases where people discarded the aerators after using them for a couple of days. We tend to value a product less when it comes for free. So, I started to charge Rs 50 for the aerator and continued the service for free, Alpa says.
A few months into the mission, many passionate Mumbaikars joined Alpa to spread awareness.
Installing water aerators can reduce water wastage by 60%. Source: Pixabay
Around 15 people formed a group, ‘Balance Water’, learnt how to fit the aerator inside the tap and installed them in their respective buildings.
This way, more families started saving water.
One of them is Pawan. He demonstrated the water-saving device at The Bombay International School in South Mumbai. He also convinced around 30 families in his building to install the aerators.
Alpa’s movement has also reached other cities like Surat and Pune. Many schools have invited her to educate their students, “A couple of schools have asked that students convince ten families to use the aerators as part of their projects. I am happy and grateful that the movement is doing well.”
If you live in Mumbai and wish to install the aerator, write to Alpa at harekboondbachao@gmail.com. She will send a staff member to your place at your convenience.
Nine-year-old Krishna has been looking forward to playing his favourite game of waging a battle against the Kurichi Kulam, a fishing pond in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu.
It will be his second week in the cleanup drive undertaken by the people of the city.
His first attempt was a huge accomplishment, he says. It helped him feel like a Superman for protecting the environment.
Looking at Krishna’s dedication to clean the pond, R Manikandan is transported to his childhood. As a child, Manikandan would draw water from a nearby public well in Sundarapuram until it dried up in 2000.
This bitter memory, coupled with the news of drying water bodies in Coimbatore, and across the country, pushed Manikandan to take action rather than being another spectator.
R Manikandan has been cleaning water bodies for the last 15 years
His first cleanup activity was with the Coimbatore Panchayat fifteen years ago. Knowing that he would need an extra set of hands for the massive cleanup drives, he joined the government authorities and started helping them every weekend.
Speaking to The Better India, Manikandan says,
While growing up, everyone around me complained about the issues in society, but there were very few who acted upon them. So, I would identify the polluted water bodies and notify the authorities. With their help, I would clean the ponds and lakes.
After gaining expertise and experience, the 37-year-old founded Kovai Kulangal Padhukaapu Amaippu in February 2017.
Kovai Kulangal Padhukaapu Amaippu NGO has cleaned eight water bodies so far
“A few like-minded people had good intentions, but there was no organised way to carry out the cleanup activities. I also wanted to bring about a behavioural change among the people and make them realise how they can contribute to safeguarding the environment,” says Manikandan.
He owns a small lathe workshop in the city.
Prathap Nandagopalan, one of the volunteers, met Mandikandan during the famous Jallikattu protests in 2017.
He tells The Better India, “Water is our primary resource. Due to climate changes, the monsoon season is irrational. In such a situation, conserving existing water bodies becomes very crucial. Coimbatore receives rain during monsoon and water from the Shola forests throughout the year, but polluted and blocked water streams cut off the water supply to our homes. We need to treat and reuse the water we have.”
The Noyyal river originates from the Western Ghats and travels 180 kilometres, joining the Kaveri river at Karur. It fills around 32 lakes that come under the jurisdiction of the Coimbatore Municipal Corporation (CMC) and Central Public Works Department.
Most of the water bodies have dried up due to encroachments, waste management, and lack of maintenance.
The NGO is now reviving one pond at a time and ensuring adequate water supply in the city.
One water body at a time
Most of the water bodies have dried up due to encroachments, waste management, and lack of maintenance
Two years ago, when Mandikanan and his teammates pressed the ‘send’ button on WhatsApp, they had not expected their weekend activity to turn into a full-time mission. Around 50 citizens turned up at Perur lake at 6 am to remove the Juliflora. The volunteers also de-silted the lake.
The 300-acre lake had 400 volunteers the very next week!
Mandikanan attributes the rise in volunteers to social and local media.
It took the citizens around three weeks to clean the 300-acre lake. The eight tonnes of waste removed was given to the Municipal Corporation.
Hundreds of volunteers clean water bodies every weekend
The success of Perur lake was a huge morale boost for Mandikanan’s core team comprising 50 people. There has been no looking back since. They have cleaned multiple water bodies, including ponds, check dams and lakes.
Another significant cleanup drive was at the Vellalore lake. Two decades ago, the water channel of the lake was blocked due to waste dumping by encroachers around the water body.
Vellalore lake
Since the team did not have sufficient funds, the volunteers freed the lake from human and plastic waste manually.
They worked for eight weeks and opened a 6.5-kilometre stretch of the channel. With help from the PWD, the volunteers also rehabilitated encroachers from a 1-kilometre stretch.
“It was one of our toughest and most memorable projects. The encroachers and sludge inside the lake made it very difficult for our volunteers to step inside and clean it. It was because of their determination and efforts that the lake was cleaned,” says Mandikanan.
The Sundakamuthoor ancient well was covered with mud and waste, but with the help of the heritage department, the volunteers recovered it.
Other water bodies that the NGO was able to clean are Sengulam lake, Kuniyamuthur water channel, Kumarasamy lake, Valankulam lake, Chithiraichavadi check dam, and the Singanallur check dam.
Post Cleaning Activity
Sundakamuthoor ancient well was once covered with waste
Merely cleaning the water bodies was not enough, says Prathap. He continues, “All the efforts of our volunteers will go in vain if the lake comes back to its previous condition. A project is completed only if it can sustain itself.”
The NGO would thus undertake extensive awareness drives with the locals residing near the respective lakes. In addition, the NGO sowed 1.36 lakh palm seeds in and around the water bodies that they restored.
The NGO is now growing a Miyawaki forest
They are now growing a Miyawaki forest at Vellalore lake. It is a Japanese method of tree plantation that grows saplings ten times faster, with the forest being 30 times denser. Around 2,500 saplings of 60 varieties of medicinal plants have been sown. The final goal is to create a forest with 16,000 trees.
In terms of impact, the clean lakes and new plants have resulted in the return of 75 species of migratory and wetland birds.
Cleanup has resulted in the return of 75 species of migratory and wetland birds
Dumping waste directly into the lake has led to the disappearance of exotic species of birds across the country. The cleanup drive is bringing back the flora-fauna of Coimbatore, says Prathap.
Where the NGO stands today
The lake revival team hopes to clean every water body in Coimbatore
The two-year journey of Kovai Kulangal Padhukaapu Amaippu saw some successes and several challenges. From acquiring permissions each time they wanted to clean a pond to sourcing enough funds for the activities, the NGO overcame challenges along the way.
For now, the funding of the cleanup campaign is done via donations from volunteers and citizens.
When asked about the final goal of the NGO, Mandikanan answers, “The objective of the NGO was to channelise the activities and make citizens responsible. We aim to revive, restore, and rejuvenate, as many water bodies in the city as possible.”
This article is part of a series by experts in support of the ATL Tinkering Innovation Marathon – organised by Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog and The Better India. Read more about the marathon here.
Imagine waking up in the morning to find that all taps are switched off, the lakes, rivers and streams have run dry, and the oceans have evaporated into dusty valleys.
To those living in urban areas, this might seem to be a far cry from reality, but to the 163 million Indians who continue to toil being deprived of clean water, it is indeed an impending doom.
In India, an average individual uses about 150-200 litres of water every day, of which, only 10 litres are consumed for cooking and drinking, while the rest goes in cleaning, bathing and toilet flushing.
Think of the required amount of water transported every day to satiate this population, and of the challenges in the process.
From under-maintained water pipes prone to leaks and contamination to the ever-increasing bane of pollution, supply and access to clean water are becoming a scary reality with every passing day.
“Unfortunately, in the present time, water is indeed the most violated natural resource. It’s just taken for granted, and so if things continue the way they are, imagining Indian cities coming to a state worse than Cape town, is not a distant reality,” says Col Shashikant Dalvi, a Pune-based water conservationist who has been crusading the cause for more than a decade now.
He is one of the few individuals who have not only brought India’s water woes to the limelight but has also introduced sustainable solutions in the form of popularisation of rainwater harvesting, all across Maharashtra.
Like him, here are five more innovative Indians who have developed measures that have helped cities and villages find long-term solutions for all their water problems.
Recognising such out-of-the-box and impactful innovations is how the country can step into a truly progressive and sustainable future.
1) Taraltec Disinfection Reactor
In India, nearly 40% of water is supplied from groundwater resources, despite its quality being depleted at an ‘unsustainable rate.’
Confirming the alarming situation, a report by the NITI Aayog states that 70% of the country’s water supply is indeed contaminated. This being the situation when a majority of rural areas rely on groundwater sources for 85% of their requirements.
Caught amid these challenges, Anjan Mukherjee, a former marine chief engineer, found a sustainable solution.
An IIT dropout and an IIM graduate, Anjan created a ‘fit-and-forget’ device, the Taraltec Disinfection Reactor which converts all the contaminated water from borewell hand-pumps, at the very source to supply clean water.
The device supplies clean water by killing 99% of the microbes present at the source.
However, speaking to the Better India, Anjan confirms that the reactor is not a simple filter, but a device inspired by the scientific principles of bio-mimicry.
“The device converts the kinetic energy of the fluid into millions of targeted micro-bubbles each acting as localised reactors. This generates extreme heat, pressure and turbulence that release intense energy packets during the collapse of bubbles. The resultant shockwave, marked by a bang sound, lacerates and kills the microbes. The water, which is 99% safer than it was earlier, then emerges from the borewell or pump into the hands of those drawing it,” he explains.
Priced at Rs 7,500 per piece, the innovation won the India Innovation Growth Program 2.0 Challenge organised by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Lockheed Martin Corporation and Tata Trust, among many other accolades. Read more about it here.
2) Retas
Giving a new spin to rainwater harvesting, the centuries-old water conservation technique, Ankit Magan, Neeraj Chauhan and Priyank Jain, three MBA graduates, devised a way to hit two targets with one solution, that is, save water while recycling plastic.
Named after the Sanskrit term for the flow of rainwater, their venture, ‘Retas’ provides a smart resolution of utilising the abundance of rainwater to meet the post-monsoon water scarcity in Gurugram.
Interestingly, the idea for the venture came to the trio while they were stuck in traffic due to heavy rains.
“Around three years ago, [we] were stuck in unmoving traffic for 45 minutes. All we could think of was how ironic is it that the streets were flooded because of the poor drainage. And a few months after monsoons, we are struggling to have access to water. That incident was a teaching moment for us, one that would lead us to the path of rainwater harvesting,” Ankit tells The Better India (TBI).
With recycling plastic as one of the prominent additional benefits of their venture, they created a new rainwater harvesting model called the Rainmaxxx.
This model made use of geotextile, a porous fabric that allowed filtered percolation of water, using a readily available polypropylene plastic.
Owing to their efforts, the venture has spread across India, from Jammu in the north to Kerala in the south, helping building owners, agriculturalists and corporates make the best use of the most precious natural resource.
3) Flexi Flush
Did you know that every day an individual uses 5-6 litres of water more than they actually require?
For instance, a Times of India report mentions that every time you use the washroom and flush the toilet, it consumes 10 litres of water, when you can do with just 500 ml of it.
So, imagine the amount of water each household wastes daily, thanks to the seemingly insignificant action of flushing?
It was this thought of tackling water wastage in Indian toilets, that prompted a group of students in Mumbai, to come up with a rather simple solution.
Rohan Shenoy, Shaommik Kelkar, Dhruva Iyer, Sidak Arora, Dhruva Jain and Chaitanya Raghavan, are six students of Classes VI to VIII from across various city schools who came together to form ‘Team Livewire’ and introduce two innovative solutions to the problem.
The first involves fixing two 500 ml bottles in your flush tank. The idea is to prevent the tank from filling up so that in the next flush, only an appropriate amount of water is drained, thus reducing the water wastage by half.
Further, the second solution includes a sensor-based prototype called Flexi Flush, which is underway and is expected to estimate the right amount of water to be disposed of in the commode and will flush accordingly.
Such an innovation can truly make water conservation a simple yet largely impacting practice all over India!
4) Why not drink recycled water? Bengaluru techie tells how
Water recycling is not a new idea. With several housing complexes and institutional buildings installing their own sewage treatment plants, the processed water is usually used to water plants, flushing the toilet, or other cleaning purposes.
The idea of consuming recycled water has never been a welcome change, mainly due to discolouration and odour in the water owing to inefficient treatment and filtering.
And, for the past 11 years, this is precisely the gap that this engineer, Vikas Brahmavar, is trying to fill with his innovation.
With a vision to raise awareness about water recycling and make it drinkable, Vikas found TransWaters Private Limited, formerly known as Blorebuy.
“The mindset that recycled water is not fit for consumption or household use has to be changed. Sadly, the recycled water from STPs is often treated partially, leaving behind discolouration and a strange odour. This is where we come to action,” said Vikas to The Better India.
The company used various patented recycling systems sourced from the US to treat water after it comes from STP treatment, using naturally processed and mined ores.
There are various stages that the treated water is then put through, to bring it to a drinkable quality. The first stage involves passing the treated STP water through a filter of a specialised medium, to reduce and eliminate total suspended solids (TSS), followed by a micron filtration in the second stage. The final step involves a process of ozonation to disinfect the water and store it in tanks.
“Because it is available, we don’t realise the value of water. This mode of treatment technology has been in use for many years abroad with countries like Singapore, USA and Namibia optimally reusing its used water. It is about time that we use it too,” Vikas added.
5) Smart Wash Basin by UP engineering students
Imagine the amount of water you waste every morning while brushing your teeth, battling away sleep and lethargy.
What if all that water can be saved, with a simple alert from the wash basin itself?
Yash Khanna, Tanuj Tandon, and Utkarsh Gupta, students of electronic and communications engineering at the Moradabad Institute of Technology, found just the right innovation to make that possible.
Their smart wash basin is programmed with an ability to alert the user in a situation of continuous water leakage through either glowing LED lights or even a text message.
The idea for the smart wash-basin came after an incident when one of the creators left the tap open with the water leaking for a while night in the kitchen.
“This motivated me to wonder whether I could have somehow gotten a message alert that the tap had been left open— after which I could have closed it quickly,” Yash said to Indian Express.
What makes the innovation even better is the fact that the basin also recycles the leaking water through a natural filtering process, consisting of different graded rocks fixed at the bottom.
And, in situations of blocked drainage, the smart basic further alerts the usage, to ensure holistic combat against water wastage.
People across India are coming up with innovative solutions for different issues that the country is facing every single day. And it is to further this spirit of innovation that Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog and The Better India have come together to organise the ATL Tinkering Innovation Marathon– a nation-wide competition open to those under the age of 18.
Know more about the ATL Tinkering Innovation Marathon here.
A simple man with big dreams in his eyes arrived in Bengaluru with just Rs 150 in his pocket. He began working in the crowd of techies for which the city is known. It was only after a few years that he found a purpose strong enough to motivate him to take a risk.
Leaving his job, he set forth to achieve it.
And, today, he is leading an eco-revolution to pull the city out of its polluted pit.
This is not a simplified extract from a film script, but the real story of a Bengaluru resident—Anand Malligavad.
After reviving almost four lakes and hashing out details to work on 41 more as per his target of cleaning them by 2025, he has grown to be somewhat of a lake whisperer. And on the first day of June this year, he embarked on yet another mission to bring Bengaluru citizens together to drive substantial change.
Assembled at the shores of Halasuru lake (Ulsoor lake)—one of the largest lakes of Bengaluru, 1500 people did their bit to make the city better. They were part of a cleaning drive that Anand and his team had organised.
“We wanted this event to serve as an image of what Bengaluru can do. We had expected around 500 volunteers, and it was overwhelming to see the expectations being exceeded by large numbers. This was to bring people closer to the sad reality of what the lake has become, and how to solve it. This is just the beginning,” Anand tells The Better India (TBI).
Join Anand and The Better India as part of the Lake Revivers Collective and donate now to help us breathe life back into India’s lakes.
Meant to cause a ripple effect, the event brought together people from various fields and across all ages. After the drive, Anand’s team divided the people into groups of 50 based on their expertise like water management, plantation, waste management technology, and even on their sense of aesthetics.
“This event was meant to be a symbolic action to bring together people and build teams that can begin a more focused line of work. Using this intellectual resource, a monitoring committee will be set up to oversee each section, not just in this lake but in other lakes as well,” he added.
Even though several organisations, including the military, maintain the 124 acre-Ulsoor lake, it has suffered large-scale hyacinth infestation apart from sewage that flows directly into its waters.
10-year-old Anika Hattangadi is one of the many young participants who arrived at the lake early in the morning. Speaking to TBI, she said, “We keep coming here to play, and it’s so sad to see such a beautiful lake go to waste. We keep our houses clean, then why not do the same for our surroundings, especially our lakes.”
In a lake like Ulsoor, Anand adds, you will seldom see residents throwing waste. The water pollution is, instead, caused by the overflow of sewage waste coming from the northern part of the city, through pipes connected to the water body.
One of the participants, Rosita Sequeira, a 55-year-old resident of Cooke town, added, “I believe community participation is what we need for such a change, as it leads to collective ownership. When people pass by the lake, they say that the lake is smelling, it’s dirty, but why not try and change that instead of complaining? And, that is precisely what we are doing here.”
With experts preparing for the project, these problems are expected to be solved in a matter of months. “We are trying to employ an automated cleaning technology that can eliminate the low-density plastic polluting the water. For that, a natural biological filter is being developed to trap large suspended particles before they enter the lakes through the pipes. Next step is to employ a natural plant treatment system to target and remove the dissolved particles. For the interior parts of the lake that are more challenging to clean, the team plans to collaborate with the military for help,” added Anand.
In collaborating with the military, he hopes to get the cleaning of water bodies included as part of their training curriculum.
“People think that the government is a separate entity from them. They forget that it is made up of people like you and I. It is an extension of us. And, so real change cannot bring from the government alone. It needs to come from within us, through our collective efforts!” says Anand.
Although this initiative is just a beginning, the organisers, as well as the citizens, are hopeful that together they will be able to rewrite the history of lakes in Bengaluru!
Currently, Anand is also working with The Better India as part of The Lake Revivers Collective to revive the 3-acre Gavi Kere Lake in Anekal Taluk of Bengaluru South. With the idea of spreading awareness about the urgent need to start taking steps towards saving the country’s water bodies, The Lake Revivers Collective is extending its support to the work Anand is taking up toward cleaning Ulsoor lake.
Find out more about The Lake Revivers Collectivehere
Like any engineering aspirant, Ramesh Kumar Soni’s dreamed of securing admission in one of the prestigious IITs.
Unfortunately, it did not happen.
However, during his preparations in Kota, Rajasthan, he encountered the exciting field of nanotechnology, and shedding his disappointments aside, he decided to join Chennai’s SRM University for a BTech in the subject.
His growing understanding of nanotechnology propelled his interest towards developing atmospheric water generators (AWGs), a device that extracts pure, safe, clean, potable and remineralized water from humid ambient air.
He finished his BTech degree in May 2014, and joined the chemistry department at IIT-Madras, as a project associate the same year.
Here, alongside Professor T Pradeep from the Department of Chemistry, and PhD student, Ankit Nagar, he co-founded Vayujal on September 20, 2017, which develops AWGs.
Thus far, the startup has produced five units of AWGs, of which four generate 100 litres a day, and one generates 400 litres per day.
Drinking water from a Vayujal-developed AWG. (Source: Facebook/Vayujal)
“The company’s patented surface engineering technology and unit design increases water collecting efficiency of AWG units and provides water at a cost 10-20 times less than the current bottled water costs,” says the company website.
The IIT-Madras incubated startup designs and structures the critical components like air filters, water purifiers, heat exchanger coils, condensers, evaporators, compressors and some fans and assembled all of them together.
Ramesh’s expertise in nanotechnology comes into play in the condensation process.
How does this machine work?
Speaking to The Hindu, Ramesh draws comparisons with how an air conditioner works, where there are different surfaces involved and where there is condensation of water.
“This condensed water is filtered, treated, mineralized and made fit for drinking or cooking. The structures used for cooling the air draw inspiration from cacti. Just as the cacti have small thorn-like structures, the cooling surface in the AWG too has some structures that is used to cool the air. When air passes through it, the relative humidity content goes high, and water starts to come out of it. The rate at which water is produced depends on the ambient temperature, humidity level, volume of air passing over the coil and the unit’s capacity to cool the coil,” explains Ramesh, speaking to the national daily.
Speaking to The Better India, Ramesh says that developing AWGs to generate potable water isn’t a groundbreaking innovation, but Vayujal is developing units with higher efficiency.
For a city like Chennai, which is suffering from its worst water crisis in recent memory, these machines are critical.
“Today, many cities in India, particularly Chennai and Bengaluru, are suffering from a severe shortage of groundwater. In some cities, this water is expected to run out soon. Moreover, surface water bodies have been devastated. Right now, we are entirely dependent on the rain, and for drinking water, we are either reliant on water cans or RO purifiers. But conditions in Chennai make RO water a less viable option.
Meanwhile, the supply of water in cans has been completely disturbed. The price of water has been hiked, while there are fears of impurities. In these conditions, a person with the AWG at home can produce their own water on conventional electricity or solar energy. They are ensured of timely supply of water and assured of what kind of water they are getting because ultimately they are making that water. This dependency on water supply goes away. You have independent control over your water. That’s a value addition our units can do,” says Ramesh.
Vayujal is also currently developing the 30 and 2000 litres per day (on solar backup) units as well.
“The cost of water generated from this machine is somewhere around Rs 1.5-3 per litre if the electricity tariff is at Rs 6 a unit. However, the cost of water depends on electricity tariffs, relative humidity and ambient temperature as well,” informs Ramesh.
What helps Vayujal in generating water at such low prices is the high levels of humidity in Chennai, but Ramesh informs that they are looking to mitigate the effect of ambient humidity. They want this machine to run efficiently in dry and hot states like Rajasthan.
Another challenge is ensuring that the condensation process is more efficient and less power consuming.
“If somebody makes 100 litres of water per day on a particular surface area, can you make 150 litres of water on the same surface area? Moreover, while doing that, can we achieve the same objectives with a little more power efficiency? We are trying to minimize power consumption. By raising the heat transfer and condensation efficiency, there is a real possibility we will consume less power per litre of water produced,” explains Ramesh.
“For every litre of water we produce, we consume 0.3 to 0.4 units of electricity. We need to bring that down so that it is affordable. If we go below 0.3 units per litre daily under Delhi’s semi-arid like climate, we would be happy. That will be a real milestone,” he adds.
That’s where we come to the next challenge, which is to reduce the cost. Today, the 100 litres per day unit costs approximately Rs 1.5 lakh, while the 400 litres unit costs Rs 5 lakh. For the 30 litres per day unit, they are trying to keep it below Rs 50,000. VayuJal will soon start scaling up the production of AWGs in Chennai, helping them to reduce the cost of production further.
“We are essentially working on raising operating efficiency and reducing costs. A school may be able to buy our machine, but an individual school teacher may not. A proper manufacturing structure in place will help us reduce capital costs. The objective is to ensure minimal costs for maintenance and power consumption, running these units for 10-15 years,” informs Ramesh.
The moment these AWGs are available to individuals at affordable prices, what you’ll have is an era of democratized water, where individual households can have complete control over their own supply of potable drinking water.
Waking up early to walk for miles, only to join the never-ending queues for brown-tinted water, companies asking employees to work from home, restaurants shutting down and the government desperately asking people to use water wisely.
This was the scenario in South Africa’s Capetown in September 2018.
Back then, several studies and reports were released, warning cities across the world about a looming water crisis.
Exactly nine months later, India’s southern city, Chennai, has run out of water due to several reasons, the most important being a lack of water management. The capital city is now looking for temporary solutions like ferrying water. On July 7, the city is expected to get 10 million litres of Kaveri water from Jolarpettai in Vellore district.
While the government is taking measures to provide immediate relief, we must bring about a long-term sustainable way to ensure that other regions in the state and country do not face day-zero.
We look at individuals and organisations that are using technologies and simple solutions to save water. What’s more? You can also adopt some of these solutions for long-term relief.
1) Chennai Family Collects Water That Is Purer Than RO Filter
Borewell recharging
V K Raviraja, a 48-year-old insurance consultant, lives on Vasuki Street in the Rajakipakkam area. Five years after he moved into his new 1,000 sq ft home, he installed four types of rainwater harvesting systems.
Using no special techniques, Raviraja relied on gravity and created a slope on the roof that transports water through a hole that goes to a tank. To ensure that the dirty water is purified before it is deposited in the tank, he has placed a cloth that collects dust. The overhead tank can store 7,500 litres of water.
His family, which consumes around 8-10 litres of rainwater every day, has successfully collected 1,500 litres of drinking water so far. Apart from this, they have an underground sump with a capacity of 13,000 litres to catch all rainwater from the terrace for common use.
2) Rain Water Harvesting Helps Bengaluru Man Conserve 60,000 litres of water
Bringing down his water bills to Rs 100 every month, a former technician at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Purushothaman has been saving every drop of rainwater since 2011.
He has installed two RHW systems, which have so far saved some 60,000 litres of water. The conserved water is used to clean utensils, mop the house, and water plants.
3) Quenching Thirst By Creating Artificial Water Glaciers
Also known as the ‘Ice Man of India’, Chewang Norphel has created ten artificial glaciers to meet people’s water demands in Ladakh.
When the 79-year-old retired civil engineer observed that natural glaciers were melting quickly due to global warming, with the resultant wastage of water, he decided to develop a system to conserve the melting ice.
In Phutse village, he made canals to divert water from the main streams to catchment areas located on the outskirts of the village in a shadow area. He constructed ice-retaining walls alongside the area to store the frozen water.
The width of the glacier ranges from 50-200 feet and the depth from 2-7 feet. This water-saving technique has provided water to farmers during water scarcity.
4) Bengaluru Apartment Complex Saves 500 Liters of Water Every Day
Adhinarayana Rao Velpula from Maa Brindavan Society in Bengaluru purchased buckets and left them outside people’s doors to encourage the residents to save water. He convinced every one of the 46 apartments to save wastewater generated from RO water purifiers. Though unfit for drinking, the wastewater can be utilised for other activities like washing cars and gardening.
Instead of using fresh water, the housekeeping staff now reuses the collected wastewater to clean floors and washing cars. On average, the apartment generates 500 liters of RO reject water every day. This is now being reutilised, instead of going down the drain. In so doing, the society is also saving Rs 1,800 per month approximately.
Wastewater purification system at Sanjay Athavale’s home in Pune is recycling 600 litres of water every day. The cycle-like structure transports water from bathroom pipelines into a water tank where it is purified using a cleansing system of sand, stones, and coconut waste. The tank also has Kardal trees inside as the roots of these trees purify water.
When we pedal, the water is supplied to my garden through a drip irrigation system. One minute of cycling can supply 18 litres of water, and a ten-minute workout by each family member is enough for the 50 trees in my garden. The left-over water is stored, and the excess goes in the drain. During monsoon, we don’t have to cycle, but each of us store about 600 litres in the tank with our usage every day, Sanjay told Homegrown.
The irony of one region facing both, severe water scarcity and floods, pushed three MBA graduates Ankit Magan, Neeraj Chauhan, and Priyank Jain to design a solution that uses plastic waste to save water.
Through their bootstrapped venture ‘Retas’ (which translates to ‘flow of rainwater’ in Sanskrit), the trio built a new rainwater harvesting model called Rainmaxxx. Using high-quality Polypropylene (thermoplastic polymer) as raw material, the Gurugram-based firm made geotextile for a rainwater harvesting model.
Since its inception in early 2017, the firm has 54 clients, including big corporations like Siemens, Tata Group and local governments in Delhi and Uttarakhand.
Filling the glass up to the brim for guests or customers is a custom followed in eating joints and families across India, a practice that does not take into account the volume of water wastage.
To change this, Abbas Suleman Kadiwal, the owner of Gloria Restaurant in Byculla, Mumbai, and his employees, have been judiciously using and reusing water. The 49-year-old has directed every waiter to use leftover water from glasses for customers for gardening and cleaning.
The 49-year-old has translated his vision into saving 45,000 litres of water per month. The water usage of the restaurant has come down to 1,500 litres per day from a whopping 8,000 litres.
From asking restaurants in Bengaluru to shift from big glasses to small, requesting waiters to fill glasses half and keeping jugs or bottles on every table instead refilling the glass, teenagers Garvita Gulhati and Pooja Tanawade are promoting efficient water management.
Under their ‘Why Waste’ campaign, the duo has collaborated with more than 30 restaurants in the city to implement these guidelines.
Of course, convincing so many people to make a change in their lifestyle was not a cakewalk, “From where we started, it was challenging to get people to accept what we were doing and get their support and encouragement. We heard a lot of things like ‘Why are you wasting your time with this?”she told The Better India.
For her efforts, Garvita became the only Indian among 60 changemakers to receive the title of ‘Global Changemaker’ in 2018. She is among the 1,000 young leaders between 18-23 years from 42 countries to stand on that platform.
What if there existed a system that sends an alert each time there was a leakage or overflow of water?
Banking on this thought, Yash Khanna, Tanuj Tandon, and Utkarsh Gupta from the Moradabad Institute of Technology, Uttar Pradesh, developed a smart basin that sends an alert through glowing LED lights. If the user is not at home when there is water leakage, the device sends them a text message.
Besides, the wash basin also recycles water by filtering it through a natural filtering process, which consists of different graded rocks, that mimic the filtering process of nature.
10) Using Excess Water Underground To Use When Needed
The plight of farmers during water scarcity and incessant rainfalls inspired Biplab Ketan Paul from Gujarat to come up with a water harvesting technique that uses an injection module to store excess rainwater underground. Farmers can then use the same water for irrigation during summer and winter.
Since the high salinity of soil in the state prevents rainwater from seeping underground, Biplab created a system where excess water passes through a pipe, gets filtered, and accumulates in an underground well. Farmers can use a motor pump to use the stored water for irrigation.
This technology even captures evaporation and prevents loss of water during the monsoon. The underground reservoir can hold 40 million litres of water and can supply for as long as seven months.
Biplab has worked with more than 14,000 farmers and transformed 40,000 acres of barren or disaster-affected farms.
As per a News18 report, 50 per cent of the country is facing a water shortage and 11 of the total 91 major reservoirs across India have dried up. Adding to that, the water levels of three major rivers—Godavari, Krishna and Kaveri—have reduced significantly.
With the number of water-stressed cities increasing in India (like Shimla, Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru) and climate change that affects rainfall patterns every year, it is time India steps up and uses the existing water wisely.
From small measures like filling the glass half to major initiatives that conserve lakhs of litres of water, citizens can make a huge difference in how water is used.
“Water is the most violated natural resource. If things continue to go the way they are, it won’t be long before taps in India run completely dry, and our cities turn worse than Cape town,” remarks Pune’s noted water conservationist and a retired army person, Col Shashikant Dalvi who has spent 16 years of his life educating about and initiating Rain Water Harvesting [RWH] systems across his city, Pune.
His fear is not unfounded.
Central Ground Water Board (CGWB), under the Ministry of Water Resources, published a report in 2018 which found that the groundwater level in India has depleted by 61 per cent from 2007 to 2017.
And, according to the 72-year-old, one of the primary reasons behind the water crisis is the decrease in percolation rate owing to rising urbanisation. Speaking to The Better India (TBI) Col. Dalvi says, “The rising population in most metro cities has pushed concretisation several notches higher than usual. As we are cutting more and more trees and building more concrete roads, the surface of the ground is becoming less absorbent, causing the percolation rate of rainwater to go down. This, in turn, is drying up the bore-wells and thus creating the water crisis,” says Col. Dalvi.
This realisation dawned when he moved to Pune after retirement.
Viman Nagar area was a fairly new locality when Col Dalvi bought a flat in a housing complex there in 2002. It did not take long for him to realise that beneath all the modern amenities persisted severe water problems. To satisfy the needs of 57 flats in the complex, they had to get three big water tankers despite utilising the corporation supply every day which cost them an extra amount of Rs 25,000 per month.
“The high expenditure soon became a concern, and I began to find ways to combat. That was when I remembered from experience of the army days, how rural families in Rajasthan, sustainably conserved water through a simpler form of RWH. Thus I decided to implement it here on a large scale,” shared the expert.
This prompted him to start a rain-water harvesting consultancy, Parjanya, in March 2002, thus ushering a tide of change against the water shortage in the city.
“Water has been exploited for decades and is left in a pitiful condition. But rainwater harvesting (RWH) could be one of the few ways of restoration, and when I realised it, I began researching and working towards it. RWH is a silver lining, and we must do our best to use it to its best potential.”
With his relentless efforts, the housing society—the Lunkad Greenland 2 CHS—soon emerged as an example for the rest of the city and the state. The residents of the society installed a rooftop RWH system in a 12,000 sq feet area which began to yield 9 lac litres of water a year.
“In a year we became completely tanker free, as well as the first multi-storey housing society in the state to have such a system. Owing to this the water yield from our borewell increased from half an hour to almost 9 hours a day. And, what makes RWH even better is its cost-effectiveness,” said Col Dalvi.
The rooftop installment cost the society Rs 52,000.
As per Col Dalvi, RWH is a one-time investment, and we can reap its benefits for decades with minimal maintenance. And in return, it can save from 30 to 50 per cent treated drinking water in a household, and 80 per cent in a large commercial building.
Another resident of the society, 46-year-old Rajeev Singh, added, “It’s fortunate to be living in a society which is completely tankerless, especially in Viman Nagar, which is known for water shortage. While other societies here spent lakhs on tankers, we reap the benefits of RWH while positively contributing to the environment. I have another flat in Wagholi area and the regular water woes there make me realise how relieved I am to be staying here.”
The success of Parjanya’s RWH idea with the residential society garnered widespread interest and praise. In addition to many engineers, even National Water Academy, Pune included a visit to the society as part of their course syllabus to study the functioning of this project.
The organisation, with the help of several governmental and private agencies, has been reaching out to several institutes to spread awareness. According to Col Dalvi, one of the major challenges was changing public perception regarding water conservation.
“It is comparatively easy to educate the youth as they are not conditioned as the adults. The dependency on water tankers is so ingrained in most of us that thinking of sustainable alternatives is still farfetched,” added Col Dalvi.
Since 2003, he has initiated almost 650 projects across the country, including hospitals, colleges, schools, multi-stories complexes, industries, and government buildings among others.
Recently, he completed RWH campaigns and implementation in 100 villages of Madhya Pradesh and has begun work in Maharashtra’s Beed district.
What started as an initiative of an informed and socially responsible senior citizen has now become a state-wide movement offering a drying state a better tomorrow.
“I don’t want RWH to be a novel initiative by a few but a regular and common practice that touches each corner of the country. Only then can we bring back our natural resource to its original self and secure the precious future for our children!” he concludes.
Travelling restricts your access to pure drinking water. Be it trips to mountains, sojourns in remote villages or roughing it out on the road, one cannot trust the ubiquitous tap water. In such situations, mineral water bottles become the only recourse; trustworthy but expensive, and definitely a non-biodegradable heap we leave behind.
But what if we could carry a lightweight water filter that fits on our bottles and can reduce chlorine and remove bacteria up to 99.9 per cent?
Niranjan Karagi’s NirNal, an advanced portable water filter device, does just that and more!
Niranjan, an engineering student from Belgaum, was playing football when he saw school students drinking from a potentially unsafe water outlet. To help such students access safe drinking water, Niranjan designed NirNal, a water filter that can be fitted on most PET bottles in the market.
Over the past couple of years, Niranjan has updated the technology and now, his portable device can not only remove about 99 per cent of bacteria from the water but also filter up to 300 ltr of water.
Using the water purifier is as easy as it gets. All you need is a narrow-mouthed bottle and fix the filter on the bottle like a cap. When you want to drink water, squeeze the bottle which makes the water pass through the filter. Your pure, potable water is ready!
The water purifier costs Rs 297 for a pack of three, and each filter is best used before 60 days. Convenient to carry, easy to use and extremely efficient, this water bottle filter is a must for all your travel inventories.
Trekking in the mighty Himalayas is one heck of an adventure, but it comes with its challenges—for example, bathing.
For us, the ordeal does not last for more than a few days, unlike the defence personnel stationed in these parts, who find it hard to maintain personal hygiene in the extreme weather conditions.
Keeping this in mind, Dr Puneet Gupta, an alumnus of IIM Calcutta, developed waterless personal hygiene products such as a shampoo and body bath, to help them get rid of dirt and pollutants, without the use of water.
Clensta’s products remove the very mechanism of ‘rinsing’ and using ‘water’ in the first place! You will, of course, still need access to an enclosed, private space.
I sprayed it on my palms and massaged my skin gently, and then wiped it off with a clean towel or tissue. You can also spray it directly on your body, and then wipe it off.
Clensta’s shampoo is so much better than the alcohol-based dry shampoo sprays available in the market. Pour a coin-size amount of the gel on your palms, rub them together and apply to your scalp and hair. Massage gently, pat dry with a towel, and say hello to clean hair!
Before his posting in Uttar Pradesh’s Banda district, Heera Lal, a 1994-batch Provincial Civil Service (PCS) officer later promoted to the IAS in 2010, had extensively studied the groundwater crisis in the drought-affected Bundelkhand region.
When he finally got his posting in September 2018, he took it upon himself to resolve the issue.
The crisis is genuine. According to WaterAid, a non-profit working with the district administration, more than 70% of the wells are showing rapid groundwater depletion with 50% wells showing 0-2 metre, 7% showing 2-4 metre and 15% indicating more than 4-metre depletion annually.
“This region has suffered a persistent water problem, so ponds and wells—the main sources of water—were prioritised. Of the total 7508 wells, only 3223 still have water in them; the rest have dried up, and the reasons for that are both man-made and natural. On the other hand, of the 2292 ponds in the district, only 1193 have water in it; the rest have either dried up or been acquired by people,” says a Firstpost report.
Although the district receives an annual rainfall of 800 mm, the inability to store it and the difficult topography marked by barren hilly terrain with sparse vegetation makes it hard for groundwater recharging.
Falling groundwater levels and dying water bodies are a consequence of neglect.
When people depended on the pond, they took care of it. When the wells came up, they forgot about the ponds. When hand pumps came, wells were neglected. When piped water supply arrived, all those hand pumps saw neglect.
This is a general sequence of events not just in Banda but all over India. Consequently, the district administration went on a massive public awareness campaign and instituted critical interventions for groundwater recharge across eight blocks covering 470 Gram Panchayats.
“With time, people had moved away from wells towards hand pumps and ignored ponds for tube wells. My main objective is to reconnect people with their traditional repositories of water, particularly the wells and ponds, which had fallen into neglect and disuse, and revive groundwater levels,” says Lal, in a conversation with The Better India.
The campaign began on October 6, 2018, and falls into two key phases with the May 2019 general elections dividing them.
The first phase of this water conservation effort called the ‘Bhujal Badhao, Peyjal Bachao’ (Increase Groundwater, Save Drinking Water) saw a mass awareness campaign on water budgeting for local officials and residents, besides the construction of contour trenches near-critical water sources like hand pumps and wells to conserve water. Following the recommendation of Mahendra Modi, an advisor to the Department of Urban Development, the district initially emphasised these elements.
District Magistrate Heera Lal (Right) and Mahendra Modi, Adviser to UP Urban Development Department.
But how do you get residents to participate in these initiatives and take ownership of them?
In the case of Banda, this means establishing a connect between the new district magistrate and the general public. The first step in this regard was organising a Startup and Innovation Summit between 28-30 January 2019.
Held at the district medical college, it saw a gathering upwards of 50,000 people. Aside from starting a conversation about water conservation, the event saw a burgeoning relationship between people and the administration.
“The next step in building this relationship with the public was the administration’s mission to increase voter turnout in the district before the general elections. The results were spectacular. Banda saw one of the highest increase in voter turnout percentage in UP,” says Lal.
With the momentum generated from the voter turnout campaign, they seamlessly went into the second phase of reviving traditional ponds and wells under the Kuan Talab Jivao Abhiyaan (Well and Lake Revival Campaign). However, before we get into the second phase, it’s imperative to understand the groundwork that went into the first phase following the startup summit.
“We developed certain tools to address this problem—introducing water budgeting techniques and designing of contour trenches nearby by water points. This involved training officers from the district to the Gram Panchayat on how to construct contour trenches near hand pumps and water wells based on a predefined module for rainwater harvesting, water budgeting techniques and other groundwater-related concerns. The administration then conducted a Jal Choupal, raising awareness about the issues mentioned above across all villages in one day, followed by the construction of contour trenches near hand pumps and wells using the same SOP discussed at the Jal Choupal,” says Dr Shishir Chandra of WaterAid.
District Magistrate Heera Lal leading the way in showing locals how to construct contour trenches.
These activities happened throughout February and March. With the focus on saving water, conserving water near hand pumps and wells, and enhancing groundwater table, they developed contour trenches that allow rainwater to percolate down.
“These were constructed near hand pumps to raise awareness about the importance of saving water in these parts and foster a sense of community participation. In one day, 2,655 contour trenches were constructed across the whole district,” informs Dr Shishir.
“The total recharge capacity created as a consequence of contour trenches built was 11,001 cum (KL) in the district with storage volume of all trenches at 3,930 cum (KL),” he adds.
Locals getting involved in the water conservation process.
“Raising awareness about water budgeting was also a critical part of the programme, giving locals a clear sense of how much water they use and the amount available. For personal use, we would ask them questions about the amount of water they used to relieve themselves in the bathroom, bathing purposes, cooking and washing clothes and utensils. Following questions about personal use, we asked them similar questions about their irrigation practices and livestock use. We would then proceed to ask questions about the amount of water available in their own hand pumps and wells and the pattern of rainfall across the last 10-15 years,” says Prashansha Gupta of the Akhil Bhartiya Samaj Seva Sansthan, which worked with WaterAid.
Raising awareness in remote villages across the district.
In getting answers to these questions, they had some notion of how much water was being used and wasted. For example, if people would use 20 litres to bathe, they would tell them how 10 litres was enough. It came to a point that locals would call each other out for wasting water.
This phase of the campaign brought people together on the water crisis.
After the first phase of the campaign, these achievements were celebrated a few days after World Water Day on March 26 inviting all stakeholders.
“But the message from DM Sir was that ‘we won’t stop here’ and instead push ahead with the restoration of traditional wells and ponds that were in disrepair,” says Dr Shishir.
Following the general elections in May, the Kuan Talab Jivao Abhiyaan went into overdrive.
It began with cleaning the wells and ponds that were strewn with garbage after going into disuse. To ensure greater public participation, Lal started visiting villages and cleaning the water bodies. Watching him do it had inspired others.
“Initially, the mindset was that the solution for their water problem would either come from the state government or district administration. I told them that if the problem is with you, so is the solution. We convinced them utilising the same modes of canvassing we saw in the contour trenches construction phase,” mentions Lal.
Raising awareness
Instead of digging new wells, the administration encouraged them to deep clean existing ones. Working alongside the likes of WaterAid, they also began developing recharge wells in villages and connecting rooftop rainwater harvesting systems with them. This was to ensure that rainwater directly percolated down to raise the water table.
“The concept behind recharge wells is that water collected in the well would percolate into the ground, and recharge shallow aquifers. Shallow aquifers are water-bearing formations that exist about 10-100 ft underground, which usually get replenished during rains,” says Citizen Matters.
With ponds, it was more about desilting and deepening them so that it increases the water-holding and recharging capacity. Besides, there was a move to dig more of these ponds.
DM overseeing the rejuvenation of traditional ponds .
How did the administration proceed with it?
“Gram panchayats would identify ponds and wells that require work. Both elected officials and residents got involved in the deepening and desilting of the pond. At least, all panchayats have desilted their ponds. Cleaning of wells, which were once converted into dumping yards, are also activities they have taken up with great rigour by all gram panchayats,” says Dr Shishir.
“We motivated them to work utilising government schemes like MNREGA, through which they cleaned wells and ponds. Then, a fund at the village level, which is managed by the pradhan and secretary (14th Finance Commission report) was utilised. The agriculture department chipped in with its Khet Talab scheme, through which we are digging 2000 ponds and encouraging the participation of local labour. Thus far we have dug 835 under the Khet Talab Scheme. Lastly, we encouraged bigger farmers with large holdings to dig a pond in the middle of their land to store rainwater, use it and raise the water table,” says Lal.
“During the monsoons, however, we couldn’t dig ponds or clean the wells. Instead, we built rainwater harvesting systems in schools and different communities,” says Prashansha.
Phase 2 saw a lot of progress, claims Dr Shishir. Over 550 old community ponds were desilted and covered, 874 dug wells rejuvenated and 1,737 rainwater harvesting structures constructed in schools, panchayat offices, block offices, hospitals, official district buildings, etc.
Although the district administration, working alongside some non-profits, followed the same modus operandi as they did in Phase 1, there were some key differences. One key difference was that Phase 2 didn’t see an emphasis on water budgeting.
Moreover, to clean, desilt, and reinvent ponds/wells takes time. Also, how do you monitor these activities?
Well. they developed an ICT based monitoring tool called M-Water Application, an open web portal to monitor construction and progress.
“The DM also played a critical role in mobilising people from the local community for this effort, which we needed more of for the revival of ponds and wells. To boost their motivation and engage the people regularly, he would also regularly conduct awareness campaigns, marches and functions,” says Dr Shishir.
Jal March conducted by the district administration to raise awareness on how to save water.
One such campaign was the Kuan Talab Puja.
“The people of Bundelkhand are deeply religious. Referencing their faith, we would highlight the critical need for water conservation. Earlier, they would earlier throw garbage into wells. However, in invoking a religious angle to water conservation, there came a time when people wouldn’t even wear slippers to the well out of respect,” says Prashansha.
Speaking to Firstpost, Jamuna Prasad, 47, a farmer from the Pandui village, says, “Our forefathers told us that if we have to bring back lost water, then trenching should be done from time to time. Our generation did not care for water and ecological conservation until they lost it. Now the villagers have started doing this again and the District Magistrate, with help from a few non-governmental organizations (NGOs) like Water Aid and others, is encouraging the villagers to do it on a large scale. This is very effective and we all know that it will help us in years to come because water recharging in pre-dug ponds and wells is easy while it takes a lot of time in the new water bodies.”
Despite all the success, challenges remain, a major one being the problem of illegal structures that have been built on top of dry ponds. “Having said that, people have received this initiative very well. There is a belief in the ability of the administration to address their concerns. More importantly, however, people have taken ownership of these initiatives because they understand the urgent need for a permanent solution,” concludes Lal.
We may not realise it, but water as a resource is slowly and steadily becoming elusive. Several states have faced back-to-back droughts, resulting in villages being declared ‘severely drought-affected,’ while major cities are on the brink of an acute water crisis.
J Chandrasekaran realised this while travelling across remote villages in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
J Chandrashekhar, the founder of WATSAN
A heritage enthusiast, he was one of the founders of the REACH Foundation at the time, an NGO working towards facilitating the restoration of heritage structures.
“Over the years, I visited almost 2,000 villages scouting for heritage structures that needed restoration and noticed that all the villagers had similar issues. First, drinking water was not potable and they had to depend on mineral water bottles, whose source and authenticity was unknown. Second, we noticed that there weren’t any good toilets anywhere. People would walk around with a mug when they had to defecate,” he says.
Struck by their situation, Chandrasekaran realised that he wanted to do something that would improve their lives. After five years of research and fine-tuning technology, he founded a social enterprise named WATSAN in 2013.
“WATSAN is made up of two words—water and sanitation—which are also the two facilities we want to make accessible to people,” says Chandrasekaran, who grew up in Madurai’s Thirunagar locality. He has an undergraduate degree in Chemistry and a PG Diploma in Plastic Technology.
Affordable and Environment-Friendly Solutions
Clay filters that are placed inside WATSAN purifiers
WATSAN manufactures and distributes Terafil water purifiers. These are low-cost, effective, electricity-free water purifiers that are being used by over 2.5 lakh households in the country!
“I was exploring electricity-free solutions to make drinking water more accessible when my mentor told me that the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology (CSIR-IMMT) had come up with a clay candle with nanopores that could be used to purify water efficiently,” says Chandrasekaran.
Subsequently, he acquired the license to produce the candle and started manufacturing the purifiers at WATSAN’S unit in Kanchipuram’s Kidangarai Village.
Over the years, they also started manufacturing purifiers that could remove the concentration of fluoride and arsenic from water.
There are different variations that the purifiers come in and comprise of primarily two containers. The Terafil candle made from nano clay particles is placed in the first container. This top part of the purifier filters microbes like bacteria and virus, enabling the clean, potable water to percolate to the bottom container.
Currently, WATSAN has two units, the manufacturing unit in Kidangarai and the assembling unit in Chennai where about 28 women are involved in the manufacturing process. Among them is Sunanda Raja, 30, who has been working with WATSAN for the past one year.
A few women who work in WATSAN’s manufacturing unit
“I was working as a house help earlier, but my salary wasn’t enough to keep the household going. I am raising my two boys by myself, and have to take care of all their needs. I am delighted that I switched to this job because I am being paid more, and the timings are very convenient. Once my children leave for school, I come and work. I am done by the time they reach home, and I get to spend more time with them,” she says.
She also loves working in an all-women environment. “I have learnt how to package and assemble these purifiers, along with keeping track of the inventory. I even use one of these purifiers at home. After having worked here, I truly feel empowered,” she states.
WATSAN has sold over 5000 purifiers to NGOs in Kerala, Odisha and Chennai during the floods in each of these places. They have about six NGO partners who get in touch with them and buy these purifiers, making it accessible to the masses. Jawans in the Wagah Border are also using these purifiers.
They are also working with a leading online food delivery platform that is using their water purifier in their cloud kitchen. WATSAN’s solutions have also impacted people beyond the boundaries of the country. They have pilots ongoing in Rwanda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Myanmar.
Clay filters placed inside WATSAN purifiers
Building Toilets
In addition to the water purifiers, WATSAN has also built approximately 52 toilets by recycling discarded fibreglass.
“I noticed the large amount of fibreglass waste that was being generated by the windmill blade manufacturing industry. While windmills are a good source of renewable energy, the waste left behind is hard to dispose of as it cannot be incinerated,” says the founder. WATSAN found an innovative way to utilise this waste by constructing toilets using Fibre Reinforced Plastic (FRP),” he mentions.
These toilets are easier to make and erect than the conventional RCC (Reinforced Cement Concrete) toilets. They are also non-corrosive and lighter in weight.
Operations, Challenges and Impact
Despite the progress and change that WATSAN has brought about, there are several challenges they have faced.
“Although we devised the idea about constructing these toilets, the execution of it all took a long time because we needed approvals and sanctions,” says Chandrasekaran.
Once they got the approvals, they started making the toilet kit. This comprised of the roof, the doors, sidewalls, commode and the legs for the toilet which would keep the structure in place. They even conducted a pilot in Podaturpet near Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh border in a girl’s orphanage. They heard that one of the girls in the orphanage lost her life to scorpion bite when she had ventured out in the open to relieve herself. Here, they installed 15 of WATSAN’s toilets.
WATSAN’s toilets made from recycled fiberglass
“However, we realised that transporting these toilets was a big challenge,” explains Chandrasekaran.
Following this realisation, they decided that instead of making the toilets and transporting them, they would make the raw materials available and teach people to make them. Last month, they finished the construction 40 toilets in Thiruthuraipoondi with the help of 12 women from SHGs.
Chandrasekaran explains how his idea has caught on and motivated others. “I had visited the Great Lakes Institute of Management as a guest of honour. Hearing me speak about the kind of work we do, the students in the institute raised money through crowdfunding, and I too paid a sum. Together, we helped in the construction of a toilet,” he recalls proudly.
So, what lies ahead for WATSAN now?
Chandrasekaran is currently developing ‘Water on Wheels,’ a portable water purifier, and has received a grant of Rs10 lakh from NASSCOM to work on this project.
WATSAN’s water purifiers are being used by 2.5 lakh households in the country!
In 2017, WATSAN received the best startup award by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). They also won the Waterpreneur Award by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in 2018.
“I don’t want any degree or qualifications for anyone to work with us and become a changemaker. I want to engage more women and provide them with skills and training in being able to test the water they use. I want to work with more people so that this solution is more accessible,” he says, signing off.
Harvesting 1,000 litres of drinking water per day from thin air? Yes, you heard that right.
The South Central Railway division of the Indian Railways has installed an ‘atmospheric water generator’ kiosk at the Secunderabad Railway Station in Telangana.
Worried about the lack of clean drinking water while you are on the go? Fret not, here’s a portable water filter that will give you clean drinking water, anywhere, anytime!
Called the ‘Meghdoot,’ this atmospheric water generator (AWG), has been developed and manufactured in India by Hyderabad-based startup Maithri Aquatech.
For M Ramakrishna, the MD of the company, the inspiration for the Meghdoot came from watching people suffer around him because of the unavailability of potable water.
The solution, he believed, would be one which is self-sustaining, eco-friendly and low cost. In the process, he discovered that the answer was staring right at him—air.
“Air is sucked into the system through an electrostatic filter. Subsequently, cooled coils located in the path of air provide a temperature differential between the air and the coil surface resulting in condensation. Water is then passed through various filters to remove solids and to remove any odour and any bacterial content. The water produced is pure and free of any biological/chemical contamination,” says Ramakrishna, speaking to Economic Times.
“An AWG or atmospheric water harvester is a device that uses [the] dehumidification principle to generate drinking water out of moisture present in the air. The Atmospheric water generator captures the humidity in the air and condenses by cooling the humid ambient air below its dew point, along with pressurizing the air or exposing the air to desiccants to make water. The AWG channels water vapour towards an evaporation system in a confined sanitary environment before it exposed to pollution” reads the company website.
“The Meghdoot portable atmospheric water generator is the premium-quality drinking water equipment that generates water by condensing vapour with the help of high-efficiency filters. The moisture is drawn through the double-layered anti-bacterial air filters and ionized before converting into pure water. The collected water is then subjected to pre and post charcoal filtration process to make water free from all-set of impurities,” it goes onto add.
The water produced is further treated with Ozone. The startup goes onto claim that there is no water wastage, unlike RO devices and desalination systems. The machine contains two filters of 1 micron and 12 microns to filter suspended particles floating in the air unseen by the naked eye. Meanwhile, to produce 1 litre of water, only 0.3 units of energy is required.
Anywhere between Rs 2 to Rs 8, according to recent media reports. If you carry your bottle, you pay Rs 5. But if you need a bottle as well, it will cost you Rs 8. Meanwhile, for a glass measuring 300 ML, it would cost passengers Rs 3 and Rs 2 depending on whether the passenger carries their own glass. Similarly, for a 500 ML glass, it would cost Rs 5 or Rs 3 depending on whether you’re carrying your own glass.
For commuters passing through the Secunderabad Railway Station, this could prove to be a boon and offers them alternative choices to the bottled water sold in the station.
(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)
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No fencing, tall weeds, huge mounds of garbage, people defecating in the open and sewage flowing in from surrounding areas. This was the state of the 100 acre-Rachenahalli Lake that can be found right behind the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Rural Energy & Development (MGIRED) in Bengaluru.
Now, five years later, the lake is fenced, marked by clean walking paths, benches, gazebos, a multi-purpose yoga platform, flourishing flora and fauna, and sees more than 800 people take long walks on a weekday. During weekends, this number crosses 1,000.
The transformation was made possible by the concerted efforts of Dr Shobha Ananda Reddy and Jalmitra Trust that she founded with six others.
And her journey began on 18 September 2014, i.e. the World Bamboo Day.
Rachenahalli Lake before the revival.
A Bamboo Challenge that led to a Lake Revival
In 2014, while she was working at MGIRED, Dr Shobha was looking for space to plant bamboo saplings as part of the the institute’s drive to popularise bamboo.
She had started the ‘Bamboo Challenge’ along the lines of the ‘Ice-Bucket Challenge’ and it involved planting a sapling and challenging your friends on social media to follow suit. Students and faculty had planted 80 saplings on campus, but others on the outside wanted to get in on the challenge.
“Looking for space, I walked into this lake behind the institute. It was in a terrible state,” says Dr Shobha, speaking to The Better India (TBI).
Dr Shobha Ananda Reddy
Rachenahalli lake is a part of the area covering 110 villages recently included in the city’s municipal limits. But these villages didn’t have a proper underground network for sewage diversion. Making matters worse, the sewage being generated due to the construction of urban layouts in the vicinity began entering the lake as well. Meanwhile, the lake’s outlet had been blocked off by a building company. After a bout of heavy rainfall, water would swell in the storm water drain, which was then cut off from the larger network.
Embarking on the Lake Revival Journey
An environmental scientist by training, Dr Shobha taught and coordinated research at Mount Carmel College in Bengaluru for 12 years (2002-2014) before health complications forced her to find work closer to home at MGIRED, where she worked until late 2016. She currently works as a consultant with the Indian Institute for Human Settlements
But it was working under senior Indian Forest Service officer Punati Sridhar, who was then the Executive Director at the MGIRED, that inspired her to dive head first into the Rachenahalli Lake revival initiative.
Upon learning about the lake’s pathetic condition, Sridhar was keen on doing something to revive it.
After seven-eight months of inactivity, he appointed Dr Shobha to oversee the revival initiative. She began by involving nearby schools and colleges to conduct awareness campaigns among local residents. By this time, the successful Jakkur and Puttenahalli lake revival models backed by active citizen groups were already present.
She also wanted to promote a similar model.
“In the early days, people weren’t interested. I literally had to spend some of my weekends trying to remove the weeds, clear the parthenium and pick up the trash all by myself. Gradually people saw that I was there regularly and those passing by began joining me. I was lucky to have people like retired Major General Haridas Gopalan, Nupur Tandon, Venkatesh, Sudheendra, Sham Bhat Kolari, Abhijit Roy, Sanjeev, Anbrasan, Bindu Anil who live near the lake and birdwatcher Srinath Bidare, helping me regularly alongside fellow residents,” she recalls.
Meanwhile, at the MGIRED, they tried to organise a day event inviting all the major state-level stakeholders like the BBMP, BDA and BWSSB on the first of August 2015, but saw a poor turnout. Nonetheless, those who had begun working regularly with Dr Shobha initially formed a small group with others who had done some work reviving the lake four-five years prior.
Dr Shobha speaking to local residents and raising awareness.
“There were initially eight of us in the group within a month of that day. We were spending every weekend at the lake, trying to clean up whatever garbage and brainstorming real ideas of what can be done to revive the lake. This went on for four-five months until we realised that whatever clean-up we did it elicited no serious response from the authorities and people would still dump garbage at the lake. We had to engage in course correction,” she says.
Dr Shobha finally got in touch with authorities at the BBMP thanks to her position at the MGIRED, a State government backed institution. However, following the meeting, she was told that the lake fell under the BDA’s jurisdiction. Back in 2008-09, the BDA had taken the lake for redevelopment and spent Rs 16 crore reviving it by 2010.
The lake was then supposed to be handed over to the BBMP for oversight, but this transfer of guardianship got lost in a bureaucratic maze and no one supervised its maintenance for over three years.
The lake naturally fell into disrepair.
Getting youngsters to participate in the cleaning up process.
Bringing their Efforts under a Formal Citizen Group
“The BBMP advised us that if we were to be taken seriously we would have to register ourselves as a formal citizen group. Meanwhile, we passed along petitions with one garnering over 5,000 signatures from locals, submitted them to BDA and BWSSB and other agencies to close the entry of sewage into the lake. Our activism helped and compelled the agencies concerned to partially direct the sewage away from the lake,” says Dr Shobha.
Finally, the members decided to become an apolitical trust only interested in reviving the lake. By early 2016, the eight members came together to form the Jalmitra Trust.
Dr Shobha taking inputs from locals living near the lake.
“That year we entered into an MoU with BBMP, and subsequently with non-profit United Way Bengaluru (UWBe), which helped raise CSR funds. In the first year, they raised Rs 10 lakh, and primarily gave us labour for the maintenance of the bund area. Meanwhile, the MGIRED had adopted a 100 metre stretch of the lake. Alongside staff and students, we maintained this stretch. For another 100 metre stretch, we had invited nearby schools and colleges to maintain it. Working with us, the students of Legacy School, Benagluru, adopted this 100 metre stretch. We maintained these stretches, cleaned and beautified it,” she informs.
Lesson time: How do you revive a lake?
However, in the midst of all this work, she quit her job at the MGIRED to dedicate herself full time to the revival initiative.
Meanwhile, Jalmitra also reached out to the then local MLA Krishna Byregowda, who helped them push the BDA and BBMP to initiate some simple yet critical works like fencing the lake and complete unfinished work. He helped in getting the lake transferred from BDA to BBMP.
Jalamitras
“His influence brought the BBMP to work towards reviving the entire lake. They did the bund area properly, started fencing it up (which is nearly done) and addressed encroachments into the lake resulting in a re-survey of the lake, which is now complete. To address open defecation, we approached the local Joint Commissioner and the state pollution control board. Jalmitra got them to issue notices to builders to provide proper sanitation facilities to their workers. Without these facilities, these workers were coming to the lake and defecating. Working with the local BBMP office and State pollution control board, we managed to positively address other illegalities in the lake area as well. This was the effort,” she says.
A citizen-backed effort to clean up the lake.
Jalmitra: Going from Eight to 200 Members
Jalmitra also conducted a series of lake awareness initiatives in local neighbourhoods, educating people why they need to preserve the lake for groundwater recharge and urban flood management, besides running a lot of planting and cleaning drives in and around the lake. It began with just 8, but today Jalmitra has more than 200 members.
From the citizen engagement point of view, this was a real success. In the middle of 2018, Dr Shobha withdrew from her role at the Trust because of other professional commitments and health concerns. Fortunately, there are other volunteers taking the initiative forward. Today, Jalmitra is managed by a local resident, Naveen and Anbarasan, a Microsoft employee.
Their current efforts include getting the area completely fenced off which is almost done. On the water quality side, the lake receives sewage from the Amruthahalli lake when it overflows. They are trying to fix this bit. The Trust has taken care of the sewage in-flow problem on the northern side of the lake, and now the focus is on the southern side.
Close to pristine Rachenahalli Lake.
Having said that, Dr Shobha continues to guide the volunteers overseeing the Trust’s work in maintenance of the lake. Since the time she stepped back, her work revolves mentoring other people leading different citizen groups that are seeking to revive lakes in the city.
Mentoring Other Citizen Groups
“One of my friends, a faculty member with Christ College, wanted to engage in some clean up work in Arekere Lake at Bannerghatta Road. We did a two-week clean up drive there last year with her students involving the local corporator, and our job was to motivate people living in the vicinity to get involved. We were partially successful,” recalls Dr Shobha.
But it’s her work with dedicated citizens groups that may prove more influential. One such citizens group is called the RR Nagar iCare, which is looking to rejuvenate both the Mylassandra lakes in the area. Speaking to The Better India, Niveditha Sunkad, Managing Trustee of RR Nagar iCare talked about what their work and how Dr Shobha has assisted.
Another shot of the lake.
“We are working locally in RR Nagar dealing with the custodians of the lake (BBMP), bringing in CSR funds and trying to rejuvenate the Mylasandra Lakes. We have everything ready, but just waiting for the BBMP Chief Engineer to sign off on our proposal,” she says.
“But before we could approach the BBMP, we needed help documenting facts on the ground and bringing all the lake rejuvenation essentials together. We had worked with them on a couple of lakes before, bringing in CSR funds and getting things like fencing done. But the work was primarily done by the BBMP. We haven’t worked on rejuvenation ourselves so far. That’s where Dr Shobha stepped in because she had already worked on the Rachenahalli Lake. She came up with a clear plan, helped us draft a proposal, got consultants onboard, taught us how to estimate a project for revival and things like that,” adds Niveditha.
Visit the lake for your evening walk.
Are Citizen Groups Effective?
It’s difficult for citizen pressure groups to get authorities to work. For Dr Shobha, working for a government organisation like MGIRED was an advantage before starting her lake revival initiative because not only did she have direct access to other government agencies, but also learnt how they worked, which is something not many citizens are aware of.
“Within the BBMP, for example, many will not know which division to approach for lake management. They don’t know that lakes come under its Lake Department, or stormwater drains come under the SWD Department. Many also don’t know a lot of the technicalities related to lake revival. If we educate our citizens well and help them understand why preserving these lakes are important, they become empowered. My biggest focus has been to empower citizens with the requisite knowledge of science, technology and governance,” she says.
Beautification of the area surrounding the lake.
Citizen groups can’t really force governments to spend or allot money for an initiative of their choice. Local elected representatives have to step in and help. For the Rachenahalli initiative, the bund was done first, which presented some physical progress to the initiative.
“This convinced locals living nearby that we were not all about talk, but getting things done as well. More people started pouring in. Wherever a proper survey was done, we did the fencing. The lake receives stormwater from Jakkur Lake, which is mixed with sewage water. The constructed wetland at the mouth of the Rachenahalli Lake filters the wastewater to some extent. The lake’s health has been good for the most part. We also work very closely with the fishermen at the lake, who act as the first line of defence,” she says.
To a great extent, people can only get involved in some degree of physical work in any initiative, and every citizen group needs an interface with government authorities. Dr Shobha was that person in the Rachenahalli Lake revival initiative, now being taken up by Naveen.
Engagement with government authorities is often a long drawn process that requires not just patience, but persistence and an understanding of how these bureaucratic systems work.
Fishermen are the first line of defence for the Rachenahalli Lake.
Through her work, she has shown a keen understanding of how these systems work and at the same time maintained a constant level of engagement.
For concerned citizens who want to get involved in reviving a lake in Bengaluru, Dr Shobha’s mentorship can help them navigate some of the major pitfalls that come with this exercise. In other words, her mentorship could go a long way in saving the city.
Detergent waste chokes Yamuna at the mouth, excess phosphate behind deadly froth!
Worried about water bodies frothing up like Bellandur Lake? Check your detergent
Alarming levels of hormone-damaging chemical found in Ganga and Hindon, says study
Such headlines are commonplace now. And the sadder part is, they have become so common that we hardly pay attention to the grave ecological threat we are facing.
The Better India (TBI) got in touch with Dr T V Ramachandra, Co-ordinator of Energy & Wetlands Research Group at Centre For Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute Of Science, Bengaluru.
We spoke to him about the possible causes that majorly contribute to the destruction of our rivers and lakes, and what can be done to help the situation.
Of the many factors that contribute to the death of our water bodies is the sewage that flows into them consists of many dissolved organic compounds both natural and synthetic, such as soaps and detergents.
“These are surface-active agents or surfactants that reduce the surface tension of water, allowing air bubbles to persist at the water’s surface. These detergents essentially consist of phosphates, and a portion of which is up-taken by aquatic plants while the balance gets trapped in the sediments,” explains Ramachandra.
The synthetic surfactants are widely used in household cleaning products such as detergents, soaps, cosmetics, and personal care products such as shampoo. However, the most destructive are the common detergents that contain branch-chained alkyl benzene sulfonate surfactants, which are non-biodegradable and result in extremely persistent foam accumulating below the fall levels in the lake.
A majority of brands add Phosphate (P) to detergents and soaps to reduce water hardness which helps increase the effectiveness of the cleaners. When these cleaners drain out of our houses into lakes then phosphate leads to the overgrowth of algae, cyano-bacterial blooms and macrophytes (aquatic plants) which ultimately has a negative effect on aquatic biodiversity.
Also, the unmonitored dumping of solid household waste in the lakes has further aggravated this menace.
“It has been happening for over a decade now. The inflow of pollutants has far surpassed the assimilative capacity of our water bodies. Any more dilly-dallying now will cause us our natural resources forever,” he adds.
He says there are some solutions that we can collectively resort to for a sound ecosystem:
1) Decentralised treatment of municipality waste water preferably at ward levels
2) Apply ‘polluter pays’ in true spirit – restricting the entry of untreated sewage and industrial effluents into lakes.
3) Let only treated sewage through constructed wetlands and shallow algae pond into the lake.
4) Regular maintenance of floating macrophytes.
5) Avoid dumping of solid wastes into lakes.
6) Make local residents environmentally literate.
7) Most importantly, enforce restrictions or bans on detergents using phosphorous (which is a limited, non-renewable resource).
It’s time to take some action at the micro level. Start by switching your washing detergents with the sustainable one’s in the market. Whilst most states in the US, Canada and countries across Europe have banned the use of phosphate in detergents, we continue to use them without so much as a second thought.
If we don’t take the step to ban them now, then when?
Of all the resources at our disposal, perhaps water is the most crucial one, as our survival is heavily dependent on it.
Over the last few years, several reports have covered India’s water scarcity, and how it has affected millions of people, its ecosystem and agriculture. Additionally, the NITI Aayog, the Indian government’s policy think-tank, released a report in 2018, which states that if we go by current trends, 40% of India’s population will have no access to drinking water by 2030.
Alarming, isn’t it?
OCEO water purifier has two options for filtration of water
In this scenario, innovative inventions are key to dealing with such challenges and OCEO, a Bengaluru-based startup is attempting to do just that, by manufacturing water purifiers to improve access to clean drinking water.
“We saw that the need for clean drinking water was increasing everywhere, but most households are unable to buy water purifiers because of the initial costs in addition to yearly maintenance costs. Also, it is a time-consuming exercise to stand outside water kiosks and collect water,” says Vikram Gulecha, one of the four co-founders of the startup.
OCEO installs its purification systems, with the a water quality monitor attached to the filter, for zero upfront cost. The user pays only Re 1 per litre of water used as opposed to paying anywhere between Rs 40 to Rs 100 for a 20-litre water can, where you cannot even monitor the water quality.
Interestingly, all OCEO water purifiers have two filtration methods: Ultrafiltration (UF) and Reverse Osmosis (RO). In case the water supply one gets is not very contaminated, meaning the total dissolved solids (TDS) is less than 500 ppm (parts per million), one can easily opt for the UF technique. Vikram claims that this has close to zero water waste as opposed to RO, where 25% is purified, and 75% of water is wasted.
There are no upfront cost for installation or maintainence of the water purifier
Until now, the startup has now installed 10,000+ purifiers out of which 10 per cent are in offices, while others in households in Bengaluru and Chennai. This has led to them ensuring at least 35,000+ people get clean drinking water at the lowest possible costs.
“The OCEO water purifiers are IoT enabled and provide a low-cost, efficient solution to ensure safety in every drop. At OCEO, we believe water quality is not a privilege, it’s a human right,” asserts Vikram.
How it all began
Other than Vikram, the other core members and co-founders of the startup include Mahendra Dantewadiya, Hashmukh Gulecha, Rajeev Krishna.
“I would say that we are primarily a family business as Mahendra is my aunt’s husband. Hashmukh is my younger brother, and Rajeev is the son of a family friend,” informs Vikram.
While Vikram is a business graduate, Mahendra, 42, is a commerce graduate. His brother Hashmukh is a PG Diploma holder in business management and Rajiv is a Computer Engineer with an MBA degree.
The co-founders, however, are not first-time entrepreneurs. Before the idea for OCEO was conceptualised, Vikram was running a social enterprise called SPACES India, which involved providing skill training to young individuals in the management sector.
The OCEO Team comprising of (from L to R) Vikram, Mahendra, Hashmukh and Rajeev.
Vikram’s family also has a real estate business and runs a theme park in Bengaluru, where Hashmukh was previously managing all the operations. Mahendra, on the other hand, was handling a family business in the packaging industry, while Rajeev was a business analyst at a company manufacturing industrial storage racks.
When they started working on building a product based on the water needs of the population, they found that people were not willing to spend a lot of money to own a water purifier. This is why they developed the business model accordingly (which is to just charge for the water purified and used).
Additionally, the cost of water had to be cheaper than options available in the market. That was the only way they could get customers on board. So, it was decided to build a smart purifier powered by IoT as it would be easy to operate and maintenance wouldn’t be a problem.Rajeev is an electronics engineer, and was instrumental in contributing towards building the smart purifier powered by IoT.
OCEO was initially founded under the name ‘Pilmatis Innovations’ in 2017, but later, the founders realised that it was better if they kept the name of the startup and their innovation the same as it would be easy for customers to identify them.
So, they actually began their operations in June 2017.
Clean water is a human right
OCEO provides water at the cost of Re. 1 per litre as opposed to water cans that are priced anywhere between Rs. 40 to 100 for 20 litres of water.
OCEO water purifiers allow the users to monitor water quality on the app, and one can buy ‘water credits’ on the same app itself.
This means, if I knew I were to use 100 litres of drinking water in a month, I would buy that through an online transaction of Rs 100. The OCEO water purifier would purify 100 litres of water after which I would be sent reminders to recharge again when the water credit on the machine is low.
The intelligent sensors in the device help in gathering all this information on quality and quantity for the user. On the service provider’s side, it ensures that the device is effectively functioning and they receive alerts if the device needs any maintenance.
Also, due to the presence of dual options for filtration, the customer can choose to filter water depending on its quality (which can be again monitored on the app). They can also make a choice depending on what purpose they are filtering the water for. For example, cooking, drinking etc.
People who have availed OCEO’s services like it because it is low-cost wastes less water and most importantly, there are zero upfront costs.
Take Bengaluru based Ujwal Khandelia for example. The 32-year-old manages the admin department at Campus Student’s Community Pvt Ltd, a company that runs student accommodation in Mumbai and Bengaluru.
One can choose the filteration technique depending on the purpose that they’re going to use the water for
“We have been using the OCEO filter in our office since March 2017. What we like about the purifier is that this is much cheaper than the water cans where we would pay a minimum of Rs 40 for 20 litres of water. There is no extra maintenance cost, and because we have the option to choose the filtration technique, there is very little wastage,” he says.
All the employees of this company have this device installed in their homes, and they plan on getting it installed in their 28 hostels where they cater to about 4500 students.
Overcoming challenges and moving ahead
Despite having received positive responses from customers who have used their services, Vikram says that getting people on board in the first place is challenging.
“People are very used to traditional ways of doing things bringing about a behaviour change and enabling them to adopt technology is difficult. However, we’ve done our market research, and that has helped us in leveraging the market by making everything easy to operate for the user,” he mentions.
Various platforms have recognised OCEO’s work. In 2018, it was recognised as one of the ‘Emerging 50 Companies’ by NASSCOM India. OCEO also won an award for ‘Innovation with Greatest Social Impact’ by the UK government’s International Tech Hub Network and the newly launched UK-India Tech Hub.
The water purifier installed in a school in Tumkur
They also received an award at the India-Israel Innovation Challenge for Innovative and affordable solutions event organised last year in August.
So, what plans does OCEO have for the future?
Once the lockdown is over, and things get back to normal, Vikram informs that they hope to reach out to BBMP schools. They have already impacted 700+ students in five government schools sponsored by the Annapurna Foundation. Now, they also plan on expanding in five major cities and townships each.
“Our vision is to inspire the world with water, eliminate single-use filter membrane housing and plastic water bottles. All of this by providing people with access to clean drinking water anywhere they work, rest, or play,” says Vikram, signing off.
