Water ATMs to Solve Water Problems | Fusion - WeRIndia

A new innovation to solve water problems is water ATMs. These water ATMs are solar powered and bring clean water to remote villages where it is not possible to have proper water filtering facilities and the available water is contaminated.

These ATMs are from the company Sarvajal. Anand Shah the CEO of the company has come up with this idea to build a franchised network of water ATMs.

These ATMs are serving up to 110,000 rural customers who live in remote areas. These families get the supply of water at around Rs.150 per month.

Sarvajal has built filtration centers in larger villages which are operated by local franchisees. These filtration centers supply water from large villages to the smaller villages. The ATMs in villages can be used by swiping prepaid smart cards to collect water.

The ATMs use the prepaid model of cellphones and using mobile technology they keep track of water in real time. This helps the company to track the quantity of water, the timings in which people collect water and also solve any problems that might happen.

A franchisee in a larger village would pay in advance for a certain amount of water every month and they will be automatically refilled upon that.

The ATM franchise is now planning to expand to urban slums from rural villages. In these slums it is common for women to spend hours at water tankers to refill their supply.

However, this expansion has challenges like dealing with competitors and trying to convince the local government.