AI-driven Start-up based in Gurugram to provide clean drinking water at an affordable price

It goes without saying that Water is Life and to ensure its accessibility, the government is working relentlessly to bridge the water gap. In this direction, a time-bound mission-mode programme ‘Jal Jeevan Mission’ was presented to help achieve India’s ambitious target of providing clean drinking water to all by 2024, as envisaged by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. To further realise this mission, Union Minister of Science & Technology Dr Jitendra Singh launched & presided over the signing of MoU of Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven Start-Up by IIT alumni for water purification through innovative technology.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) DRIVEN START-UP INNOVATION BY IIT ALUMNI, SUPPORTED BY TDB, DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY. SOLAR WATER PURIFICATION TO PROVIDE CLEAN DRINKING WATER AT A PRICE MUCH LESSER THAN MARKET PRICE. #HARGHARNALHARGHARJAL PIC.TWITTER.COM/R5QXJNPBPN

— DR JITENDRA SINGH (@DRJITENDRASINGH) JANUARY 11, 2022

An MoU was signed between the Technology Development Board (TDB), a statutory body of the Department of Science & Technology and Swajal Water Private Limited, a tech Start-Up company founded by ex-IITians based in Gurugram. The company is focused on innovative technologies to make reliable clean drinking water accessible to communities at an affordable price.

*‘Clairvoyant: Clean Water at Affordable Price’*

With the aim to provide clean drinking water at a price much lesser than the market price, the Start-up is focused on harnessing innovative technologies for reliable clean drinking water that remains accessible at affordable prices. Along with this, technologies like IoT enabled point of use Solar Water Purification units is also planned for slums, villages and High Utility Areas.

Named ‘Clairvoyant’, the Start-up uses artificial intelligence to optimise purification systems and predict future breakdowns. Thus, allowing it to remotely manage, update, and repair each system in real-time. They have also developed clean drinking water solutions in the form of Water ATMs, which combines Internet of Things technology with solar energy to provide clean drinking water. These rural Water ATMs by Swajal proposed to use solar energy to pump water from rivers, wells, ponds or groundwater depending upon the location. The water will then be treated with appropriate technology to make it healthy & pure for drinking. With this innovation, the cost of purified water is to be brought down to as low as 25 paise per litre.

The project will empower communities to plan & monitor their drinking water needs with community ownership and will get affordable, accessible, reliable, and clean drinking water 24×7 throughout all 365 days of the year.

Dr Srivari Chandrashekhar, Secretary DST & Chairperson TDB, pointed out that this project is a combination of new emerging technologies that include IoT, Artificial Intelligence combined with renewable solar energy to cater to the need for pure drinking water in villages and remote areas.

*Harnessing Tech to provide a better future:*

The future lies with Startups that have the potential, skills and talent pool. Union Minister Jitendra Singh welcomed the financial support extended to Swajal by TDB and said that his Ministry is committed to reaching out to potential small and viable Startups having skill and talent pools but lacking resources. The Minister asked the CEO & Co-Founder of Swajal, Dr VibhaTripathi to scale up this technology to help achieve India’s ambitious target of providing clean drinking water to all by 2024. Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh said that apart from the Centre’s initiatives like National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) and Jal Jeevan Mission, Private Sector should come forward in a big way with state of the art tech solutions to cover nearly 14 Crore households where clean drinking water is yet to reach.

It may be recalled that Union Minister Jitendra Singh launched state-of-the-art Heli-borne survey technology for groundwater management, developed by CSIR-NGRI Hyderabad with Union Minister for Jal Shakti, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat from Jodhpur in October, last year, i.e 2021. To start with, the States of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab and Haryana are being taken up for this latest heliborne survey. Hence, positively working in the direction of realising Har Ghar Jal, these start-ups will aid in bettering the future prospects and bridging the necessary gaps.