In 2009, a number of villages in Maharashtra, together with Dongargaon in Mulshi, confronted a critical factor with fluorosis, a illness brought about by means of over the top publicity to fluoride. This mineral’s top focus in ingesting water resulted in quite a lot of well being issues, similar to arthritis, skeletal fluorosis, and dental problems.
Abhijeet Gan, who used to be then operating on water remedy merchandise, used to be assigned the duty of discovering an answer for the villagers of Dongargaon. The Nagpur resident travelled 100 kilometres to the affected house and spent a number of days working out the issue intimately. He used to be deeply moved by means of the plight of the kids and adults, who suffered from brown tooth and weakened bones.
Abhijeet Gan, a BITS Pilani engineer, labored for months to broaden an answer. After learning a large number of analysis papers and going via more than one iterations, he created the primary prototype — a water purification era the usage of electrolysis to take away fluoride from water.
Following the a success set up of the primary plant in Dongargaon, the Maharashtra Executive asked that Ceremony Water Answers, Abhijeet’s challenge, set up 50 extra vegetation around the state. Since then, the corporate has undertaken quite a lot of water purification initiatives, addressing a few of rural India’s maximum urgent ingesting water demanding situations.
From chemical to organic remedy of water, Ceremony Water Answers has now established over 5,200 neighborhood water purification vegetation around the nation. Abhijeet Gan, the 41-year-old founder, claims that the corporate is purifying over 10 million litres of water on a daily basis.
Offering protected water to rural India
Get right of entry to to scrub ingesting water, which maximum folks take without any consideration, is a luxurious for plenty of in rural India. The Executive’s Jal Jeevan Undertaking, introduced in 2019, objectives to supply protected and ok ingesting water via particular person family faucet connections to all rural families. To this point, about 75 p.c of rural families were supplied with faucet water connections, former Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat mentioned in March 2024.
Abhijeet Gan, the MD & CEO of Ceremony Water Answers, got to work in this mammoth drawback nearly 18 years in the past, a lot ahead of the appearance of the Jal Jeevan project.
After finishing his laptop science level from BITS Pilani and MBA in advertising from SP Jain Institute of Control & Analysis, two roads lay in entrance of him. One could be to proceed his profitable occupation as a specialist at Accenture, whilst the opposite will be the tricky trail of entrepreneurship.
It’s an open secret that he selected the latter. “My father used to be a first-generation entrepreneur. Once I got here again to Nagpur, we might rattle our brains about which house I may just challenge into. Since my father already had enjoy in water remedy, I made up our minds to paintings in the similar line, however center of attention extra on fixing the ingesting water disaster,” Abhijeet tells The Higher India.
The shuttle to Dongargaon was a turning level in his existence, igniting the innovator and entrepreneur in him. Water contamination stays a serious problem even nowadays, with a file by means of the Central Floor Water Board (CGWB) in December 2023 appearing that fluoride have been detected in groundwater in 469 districts throughout 27 states whilst arsenic has been detected in 230 districts throughout 25 states.
The entrepreneur effectively applied a defluoridation machine the usage of electrolysis. His cutting edge manner brought about fluoride compounds to settle, offering villagers with blank, fluoride-free water. This undertaking in 2009 kicked off his project to supply blank ingesting water to each family within the nation.
The way it works
Ceremony Water Answers has other answers to be had vis-a-vis water purification together with decentralised water purification programs, solar-powered water remedy devices, and cell water ATMs. A few of these are advanced in-house whilst a couple of were advanced via tie-ups with analysis labs.
Their tasks are IoT(Web Of Issues) pushed water control programs which combine this era into rural water provide schemes. This allows real-time tracking, leak detection, and optimised water distribution, minimising waste and making sure efficient useful resource allocation, stocks the engineer.
The blank water corporate works with State and Central Governments, working on long-term operation and upkeep contracts.
They have got fluoride, arsenic, nitrate, iron removing and extra. Their answers also are sustainable as a few of them are subsidized by means of solar energy, making them sensible in villages which lack a gentle provide of electrical energy.
Answers are advanced in accordance with the type of contaminant, stocks Abhijeet. The patented era makes use of the method of disinfection the usage of electrochlorination. Merely put, they use chlorine to purify the water.
“What’s distinctive about that is the truth that we generate chlorine onsite from commonplace salt, with out chemical substances. Our plant converts a salt resolution into chlorine. This makes it simple to use in any village, as salt is to be had all over. There’s no want for chemical substances, which can be tricky to acquire in rural spaces,” explains the CEO.
The patent is for the technology of chlorine from commonplace salt. Whilst the preliminary center of attention used to be on chemical removing, it has now moved to organic contamination removing too, which fits just like the water filters you may have at house.
Abhijeet stocks that they have got signed contracts to paintings in 17,500 villages underneath the Jal Jeevan Undertaking in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Bihar, West Bengal, and Karnataka. “I need to supply blank ingesting water to over 25,000 villages within the subsequent two years, which might entail treating over 1.5 billion litres of water day by day,” he says.
In lots of villages, that is the primary time they’re receiving blank, RO water. The village sarpanch of Dhurera in Rajasthan, Laksham Sahu, stocks that the corporate’s RO plant has modified their lives for the easier since 2017. “We used to go back and forth nearly 3 to 4 kilometres day by day to fetch water. Even then, the water wasn’t very blank resulting in diseases, particularly among youngsters. We’re happiest about the truth that our youngsters are getting recent, blank water day by day,” he says.
Ask Abhijeet what has been his happiest second? He remarks, “Throughout our early days, we finished a undertaking in Jharkhand, handing over blank water to other folks’s houses for the primary time. I’ll by no means omit the enjoyment on their faces once they in spite of everything had water of their homes. That second made me realise the profound affect of straightforward answers.”
Edited by means of Pranita Bhat; Pictures Courtesy Ceremony Water Answers