Aditya ShahCommon Application ID: 7938769

Dhirubhai Ambani International School

ADDITIONAL COLLEGE MATERIALS

My name is Aditya Shah. In the summer of 2010, I had finished my IGCSE board exams in Dhirubhai Ambani International School, and was in search of internship opportunities before the start of my IB Diploma. I was in pursuit of an organization whose primary focus was entrepreneurial rather than charitable. Additionally, in my economics lesson at school, I learnt that “in 2010, seven of ten people in India or nearly 800 million citizens lived in roughly 600,000 rural villages” shedding light on the economic situation of India’s heavily rural environment. Furthermore, knowing that all humans share the same basic needs for clean water, shelter, food, transportation, medical aid, and access, I was interested in providing these services. Narrowing down my choices, this new perspective on India’s future catered to my interest in pursuing the delivery of water services in rural India.

Consequently, I turned to the scorching heat of Ahmedabad, Gujarat to intern for a period of two months for the social enterprise Sarvajal. Before the summer, I saw a film called, “Blue Gold: World Water Wars,” which highlighted water as a commodity. I had never seen water in such a perspective before – but once I visited the areas in which Sarvajal operated, this need for water in a desert land became clearer.

ABOUT ME:

There are several startling statistics on the minimal access to water sources. A recent article by Inc. magazine called “Blue is the New Green” states that “almost two billion people worldwide lack access to clean drinking water” and “three billion didn’t have piped water.” Focusing specifically on the crisis in India, a Harvard Business School case provides us with additional shocking numbers. It displays the success stories as well as the downfalls of the distribution of water in India, as it states “although 88% of the population had access to drinking water…only a quarter had drinking water on their premises.” While India has the potential to develop their infrastructure systems, the most basic needs for survival are not being allocated correctly.

When presented with statistics such as this, we see the importance of providing for this specific market for years to come. A solution could be creating income-generating environments in villages rather than just charitable organizations for rural India. As Emily Pilloton, director of project H puts suggests in her book, Design Revolution - “We must elevate ‘design for the greater good’ beyond charity and towards socially sustainable and economically viable models.”

Quick Facts - • Of the 850 million people worldwide who lack access to clean water, over 150

million live in India.• Nearly 40 million Indians suffer from waterborne diseases each year.• Over 1.5 million children in India are estimated to die of diarrhea annually.• An estimated 73 million working days are lost annually due to waterborne

diseases, erasing USD 600 million in economic value.

ABOUT THE WATER CRISIS:

WATER TRANSPORTATION IN RURAL INDIA:

Introduction:

Piramal Water Private Limited is a for-profit business that was established in mid-2008 to find viable mass-market solutions to India’s drinking water crisis. The water is sold under the brand “Sarvajal”, meaning “Water for All.”

Piramal Water has its roots in the work of the Piramal Foundation, a charitable trust established by Ajay G. Piramal. The foundation initially piloted the Bagar Drinking Water Initiative as part of its Grassroots Development Laboratory in Rajasthan. The goal was to reduce fluoride contamination of drinking water in the Shekhawati region that had been linked to serious health problems.

ABOUT SARVAJAL:

The pilot revealed the enormous potential for market-based solutions to drive cost leadership, spur technological innovation and establish proper incentives to improve clean water access in India. The initiative was renamed Piramal Water Private Limited.

Anand Shah, CEO of Sarvajal had a dream of building a “compact, replicable, financeable business which could get very big in the provision of neighbourhood scale ‘off the grid’ potable water.” I worked in the execution of this dream along with several other interns and staff members.

Sarvajal is a social enterprise designed to address India’s growing healthcare divide by developing scalable drinking water solutions for rural and urban populations. The solutions are self-sustainable, engage local franchisees, and are built around community water filtration systems that can produce affordable drinking water.

The price of water is 30 paisa (0.006 USD) per litre or less.

WATER FOR ALL - Images from the Village:

OUR BUSINESS MODEL:

The expansion of our brand, Sarvajal (“water for all”), is driven by two factors:

1) Our technological innovations enable remote monitoring and control over operations while streamlining costs.

Technological innovations improve the cost effectiveness of our machinery, maintenance, and marketing:–“Soochak” Controller: Allows live monitoring and remote control of machines–Water ATM: Tracks water to end user, enables 24-7 water sales, and improves collections efficiency–Enterprise Management System: Aggregates and analyses information communicated by Soochaks and Water ATMs

2) Our franchise business model ensures water production and distribution are run locally and managed centrally.

Local entrepreneurs are enlisted as Franchisees to operate our filtration machinery and sell Sarvajal Water, simultaneously solving three issues:–Transporting water: Even local water delivery saves significant transportation costs –Reaching villages: Hiring locally from villages is easier than placing permanent staff there–Selling to customers: Locals are best suited to sell to their communities because they live in those communities

Anand Shah, CEO of Sarvajal, Graduate from Harvard Business Scool

TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW - The Filteration Process:

The Sarvajal RO Plant is machine that uses current technologies that have been proven and optimized. This model was chosen instead of using newer technologies as it allows Sarvajal to provide the best overall filtration at the lowest possible cost. Another benefit is that using existing technologies allows the organization to cheaply maintain the Plants as specialized maintenance personnel are not required, or parts are not overly expensive.

Source water is provided to the machine through the use of bore wells, tap, or any other means deemed fit by Sarvajal Field Personnel. This water is stored in a raw water storage tank and whenever the raw water pump is switched on it will feed the water through the 5-stage filtration process including media filtration, a two staged micron filtration, reverse osmosis filtration and UV purification, creating safe and pure water.

1) For the first stage of filtration, we utilize media filtration – which in simplest terms is a big pressure vessel, filled with sand, charcoal, and activated carbon. The sand is used to remove physical impurities such as suspended solids or mud from the raw water. Charcoal and activated carbon is used for the removal of organic containments, color and odor. Activated

Product Water

WaterMeter

Reject

Reverse OsmosisMembrane

Reject

Reverse OsmosisMembrane

HighPressure

Pump

Cartridge FilterHousing

Cartridge FilterHousing

Filter

MultiportValve

Raw WaterPump

Raw WaterStorage Tank

Water Pump

UV Filter

FRPVessel

Cartridge FilterDosingPump

IndustrialPressureSwitch

DosingTank

Cartridge FilterBackw

ashand

Rinse

Reject Water

Permeate

Sarvajal Soochak

SolenoidValve

Bore Well

Rerverse OsmosisProcessFlow

carbon is a form of carbon that has been manufactured to have a large surface area, for a relatively small volume. This part of the filtration takes place in FRP vessel.

2) Once the water has passed through the FRP vessel, the water must then go through a micron filter. This will remove larger dissolved solids, on the order of > 0.5 microns.

3) After passing through the micron filter, the water is then injected with a dosing chemical (either low concentrations of Hydrochloric Acid, or Citric Acid). The dosing chemical is injected into the water to act as an acid to break up any and all Calcium build up that occurs at the point of entry on the membrane. After the dosing chemical is introduced, the water goes through a second micron filter process. This is a best practice to place the water through two-micron filters, as there is a chance of some larger particles passing the system.

4) The next step is reverse osmosis. Reverse osmosis (RO) is a filtration method for removing large molecules and ions from a solution, through the application of pressure to the solution when it is on one side of a selective membrane. In the case of water treatment, the foreign objects (i.e., anything not H2O) are retained on the pressurized side of the membrane and the pure solvent (H2O) passes on to the other side. Hence before the RO process, a high-pressure pump is used to increase the pressure of the reject water, such that the water moves from the higher pressure to a lower pressure. Thus, the Total Dissolve solids in the water will increase. To increase product water, the reject water is put through another reverse osmosis process.

5) The Product Water, prior to be stored in the Product Water Storage Tank, is Sterilized using a UV Sterilizer The UV sterilizer puts water around a UV bulb. Through this UV radiation, the bacteria and viruses are killed. Hence the shelf life of Sarvajal Water is only 2 days. The bacteria may come back to life with exposure to sunlight; hence it important to note that, the radiation kills the bacteria, rather than removes it. This ensures that any organic material that was not stopped at any of the prior stages of filtration do not pass to the consumer, prior to drinking.

TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW - Soochak Controller and SEMS Server:Keen on Sarvajal’s technological advancement, I was curious to know how so many plants in so many villages were monitored. While I was also interested in knowing how so many sensors could work in parallel and how data was recorded and read on a sensor.

Their engineering team had developed a “Soocahk”program a programmable Logical Controller (PLC) that enabled remote monitoring and control over filtration operations. Sensors placed throughout the machine captured operational data, which is sent to a Virtual number using a GSM modem. This coded data is then sent to a server web application, which interprets the data and uploads it into the Sarvajal Enterprise Management System (SEMS).

TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW - RFID Machine:

Another engineering challenge in villages that was interesting was that distances were large between each RO machine and hence supplying pure water to areas out of reach by the franchisee, where profits were low as population density was low in that area was difficult.

The development of the RFID machine overcame this challenge. This user-friendly system is very simple, it is like an ATM machine where the customer swipes a card on the screen and chooses the amount of water he wishes to dispense. The RFID device sends GPRS messages to SEMS server (Sarvajal Enterprise Management System) which authorizes the transaction instantly. This server keeps a record of user transaction.

THE FRANCHISEE:

THE FRANCHISEE MODEL:

Our franchise model ensures water production and distribution are run locally and managed centrally.

Franchisee responsibilities

Operate machinery, deliver and sell water•Monthly revenue sharing: 40% beginning after first month, or minimum of Rs 5,000 ( 100 USD )•One-time Franchise Fee plus service tax: Rs 49,635 ( about 1000 USD )•Merchandise fee of Rs 125 ( 2.5 USD ) per Carboy per 20 Litres

Rationale

•Franchisee best positioned to sell water within his community•Revenue sharing ensures alignment of Franchisee and Piramal Water incentives•Upfront fees create ownership mentality, while

Piramal Water responsibilities

•Provide business development and marketing support•Maintain machines (e.g., service, repairs)•Finance and own all machinery•Install pre-packaged filtration system•Make ancillary goods available (e.g., bottles, marketing materials)

Rationale

•Machine repairs managed centrally because machines are owned and designed by Piramal Water•Marketing support strengthens Sarvajal brand

FRANCHISEE CALCULATOR:

What I did for the calculator was I helped form a basic chart with costs that the franchisee faced. To find out approximate costs I went and interviewed franchisees that are already running. Then I helped formulate the profitability for the franchisee owner based on his answer to the questions provided in the calculator. This is an approximate value so that a person can evaluate whether he wishes to be a Sarvajal franchisee. This calculator has been uploaded on the Sarvajal website and is an effective way of calculating profits for the franchisee.

For example if the franchisee can sell to around 200 families, have an operator for running his business, deliver bottles to customers and have costs and salaries as mentioned above then the approximate value of the franchisees revenue and costs is given in the second screenshot. The time to cover the upfront costs is also given.

Exchange rate 1 USD = 50 RupeesFor more details please check: http://www.sarvajal.com/scripts/calculator.php

MARKETING FOR SARVAJAL - Visits to the Villages:

The drive started off at Umergaon. The village was my first experience, visiting a place where I had pre-set notions about. A team of five members set off on an overnight journey to the Industrial town of Vapi. On reaching there in the early hours of the morning, we settled in where we met the rest of the five members of the team. After a short span of sleep and rest, we were ready to go on our launch. The rain delayed us, but we continued to our franchisee location in the Machi-Market of Umergaon.

After checking the Sarvajal machine and administering the TDS levels we set out when the rain subsided a little. We were warned by our teammates who had already finished the first stage of the launch- Day Zero about a few things. We decided upon strategies before we left the franchisees house, we would take a deposit of Rs. 50 from the villagers for the water and if the villagers would recommend this water to their friends and gather four more people, we would provide the villager with free water for 15 days on a one time basis with the consent of the franchisee.

We were only allowed to go to areas where the franchisee helpers would take us. As supplying mineral water at low prices would break the monopoly of the cartels which were formed in some parts of the villages that consisted of 40,000 people. We began our journey by dividing ourselves into team which consisted of two people.

We travelled in an open tempo. This was new experience for me. We took our gear and started marketing the water. We first entered some apartment buildings and then small households along the flooded streets. We required a lot of convincing power and ability to display the difference in quality of water which we provided with the help of TDS meters and electrolysis machines. We ate lunch late at around 3:30 pm all wet and then continued marketing the water. We came across many households where the ladies said they would

revert by the next day, as their husbands were not at home at the moment. That day we were all wet and tired, we left and returned to the franchisees house and left for Vapi where we were staying at 7 pm. After a good dinner we called it an early night.

The next day was the last one and we had gathered only 22 customers. So we began early and reached Umergaon at 9 am. After getting there two teams went to deliver the water and follow up with new and potential customers. We continued our marketing, but the weather this time was in our favor. After dividing ourselves for lunch, it was time to get more serious and market harder. We had a customer list of 150 at the end of the final day. It was time to go home and we boarded our bus back to Ahmadabad at night.It was a great experience, the lifestyle of the people, their support, their wanting to drink clean water.

Umargaon was a thumping success and Sarvajal’s next target was Dharamvali village. During the course of this launch my leadership qualities and teamwork skills started emerging. Here we ideated about addressing people in groups. Generally speaking in villages there is a herd mentality, if one person buys the water the rest will as well. Of course this could swing the other way as well. But I was ready to take the risk as we had only two days. So we decided to attract the kids with the assumption the parents would follow. So one team member organized games with the children in the village square and sure enough the parents started gathering to watch. When the crowd grew to a moderate size – we took a “water” break! This is where we got traction – while one team member distributed Sarvajal water and cookies I started chatting up the parents and explained why Sarvajal water was necessary to buy. I had gone prepared with their bore well water and a tester – showing them the level of contaminants on the spot.

Voila! We had succeeded! This is one experience that I will never forget as it taught me how to stay in unfamiliar, difficult living conditions, be independent, make new friends and also experience the real India.

C.K Prahlad states in his book, “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid”, that “given a chance, the poor are willing to be entrepreneurial and invest in their own success.” The theories discussed in his book explain why an organization such as Sarvajal was not designed for charity but as a kick-starter of rural entrepreneurship in the context of water as a basic necessity.

The existing model of Sarvajal owns, installs, services, and maintains water purification machinery that is customized by location and source water quality. Sameer Kalwani, chief technology officer noted, “The villagers say: ‘Generation after generation has used the same well. Why should they come to me now to change?’” Here the theory of Victor Papanek, designer and educator resonates, as he states it is “not possible just to move objects, tools or artifacts from one culture to another and then expect them to work.” Thus, by understanding the different cultural contexts of rural India, Sarvajal is able to integrate their model into the communities of Gujarat and Rajasthan, rather than modernize them.

Even IDEO, an international design and innovation consultancy, explains this theory in context of the water crisis in India and Africa. It describes the basic problem of water to be the significant amount of time and effort an individual takes to transport and store it. To tackle this problem, IDEO collaborated with the Acumen Fund, with backing from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to create “The Ripple Effect project”. As described on their website, the project aims to “improve access to safe drinking water for the world’s poorest and most underserved people; to stimulate innovation among local water providers; and to build the capacity for future development in the water sector.”(Image 1) Infact, even when current President of the United States, Barak Obama visited India, he emphasized the importance of water on his meeting with head of Piramal Healthcare, Mr. Ajay Piramal.(Image 2) The discussion was on the clean water corporate social responsibility

CONCLUSION:

Image 1

Image 2

Sarvajal was one unforgettable experience. The day-to-day work in Ahmedabad as well as our visits to nearby villages for the enterprise opened me to the real India, beyond the luxuries offered to me back home in Bombay.

In the summer of 2010 I went to Sarvajal to help in distributing the water and increasing sales. Through my time working at Sarvajal I realized that the need of the hour is providing easily accessible potable water to the rural parts of India at a low price.

But at my time there I realized that engineers were the true drivers of development so I went back to Sarvajal in the summer of 2011 to gain a deeper understanding of how the machine works. I would like to find other solutions to this problem by conceiving and designing an appropriate machine, to give people access to pure water. While another important issue I wish to address is that of usage of the waste water that is removed from the RO machine. There is an ethical dilemma as in order to produce clean drinking water, Sarvajal is putting more polluted water (measured by a higher TDS) back into the ground as compared to the water they took from the ground. The reject water needs to be treated. Yet no action has been taken with the reject water and this issue needs to be addressed and I hope I can do so. I feel I can be the catalyst to solve challenges and help people by pursuing a career in Engineering.

SARVAJAL AS MY INSPIRATION:

Website:www.sarvajal.com

Contact email address:info@sarvajal.com

Office phone number:+91 180 0103 2334 (toll free)

+91 079 4007 1100

Office address:Piramal Water Private Limited

Chandan Bungalow, Opposite Paritosh Towers Near Darpana Academy, Usmanpura

Ahmedabad, Gujarat 380 013

The Team:

Anand Shah, CEO (Harvard)Anuj Sharma, COO-Field (MBA, IRMA)

Priyanka Chopra, COO-Admin, (MBA, Wharton)Sameer Kalwani, CTO (UIUC)

Jay Subramaniam, CFO (UMd)

Field Operations:65 Employees (Sales, Maintenance, FBD)

120 Franchisees, across 6 states

SARVAJAL