Sarvajal

Piramal Sarvajal is a mission driven social enterprise designs and deploys innovative solutions for creating affordable access to safe drinking water in underserved areas. It deploys purification technology based on contamination profile, leverages cloud based technology for greater operational oversight. Therefore, initiatives are low cost for high impact. It believes providing safe drinking water is the most effective preventive healthcare measure.

Piramal Sarvajal leverages telecom technology to make “Locally Operated-Centrally Managed” public service delivery more accountable. This comes from operational oversight that provides proactive service support across a widely distributed network of local solutions. To ensure sustainable solutions, Piramal Sarvajal developed a patented remote monitoring device called Soochak. This device is installed with the purification unit and enables real time monitoring, process controlling and data tracking which is aggregated across multi-location operations. It tracks the plant’s functional status to ensure machine health and quality sensors assure product quality.

More than half of the common ailments in majority of developing countries are water borne diseases. In addition to the health burden, this causes an economic loss of $600 million annually. The most vulnerable are the low-income communities, who either remain disconnected from the central water grid or are priced out of expensive domestic water purification alternatives. This calls for the need to design holistic drinking water solutions for the creation of sustainable safe drinking water access at bottom of the pyramid – in both urban and rural locations.

When families do not have a safe and reliable water source, preferably direct to their home, then it is often women and children that are responsible for collecting water. School attendance in India decreases when children are required to spend hours collecting water. A 22 per cent increase in school drop out rates has been reported in drought-affected states. Close to 54 per cent of rural women – as well as some adolescent girls - spend an estimated 35 minutes getting water every day, equivalent to the loss of 27 days’ wages over a year.(Source: Analysis of the situation of children, adolescents and Women in India 2016)

Leveraging Technology for long-term sustainability:

Sarvajal’s proprietary technology plays a vital role in providing a comprehensive solution for delivery of low cost drinking water at the last mile. The various components:

1. Water Purification Plants:
   Sarvajal’s purification model is agnostic of the method of filtration, utilizing purification technology as per the source water. Sarvajal water is purified through a site-designed five-step filtration process including media filtration, micron filtration, reverse osmosis (RO) filtration and UV purification.

2. Soochak Controller:
   Piramal Sarvajal leverages telecom technology to make “Locally Operated-Centrally Managed” public service delivery more accountable. Our technology innovation comes from being able to have operational oversight and provide proactive service support across a widely distributed network of local solutions. Soochak, a patented remote monitoring device developed by Piramal Sarvajal enables real-time monitoring, process controlling and data tracking for multi-location operations. This PLC-based device is installed on each water purification plant and tracks the plant’s functional status to ensure machine health of the units and the quality sensors assure product quality. Soochak’s unique ability to remotely monitor and control purification plant operations enables effective and efficient deployment of resources.

3. Sarvajal Water ATM Device:
   Cloud connected and solar powered water ATMs tracks every transaction that takes place, which enables sophisticated market forecasting and proactive multi-unit management.

It also:
• Enhances scale of impact and optimizes net investment per installation
• Establishes water-price transparent markets
• Assures 24x7 access to safe drinking water
• Presents option to provide direct-targeted subsidies through government run programs.
• Ensures water quality accountability at the last mile

4. Sarvajal Enterprise Management System (SEMS)
   SEMS is the information processing hub of the entire Sarvajal network of distributed installations. The SEMS receives all data sent over the cellular network by the Soochaks and Water ATMs. It also serves as the conduit for all operational activities within the business, such as inventory management, maintenance tracking, accounting, and asset tracking.

Piramal Sarvajal currently serves safe drinking water to over 720,000 lacs people daily and directly through its 1,845+ touchpoints in 20 Indian states. Over 1.88 billion litres of safe drinking water has been dispensed till date.

Publicly available: yes
Countries where available: India

Blog: https://piramalsarvajal.blogspot.com/