Jal Shakti Ministry short-lists innovation proposals for water supply

A government-constituted panel has short-listed six innovation and eight research and development proposals related to water supply that will now be considered for listing in the innovation portal of the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation for states and union territories to implement.

The recommendations by the Technical Committee will help states and union territories to use these technologies depending on their requirement and suitability, the Jal Shakti Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

Since August 2019, the ministry is implementing the Jal Jeevan Mission in partnership with states to make provision of tap water supply to every rural home of the country by 2024.

Innovative technological solutions are required to realise the goal of the mission with speed and scale amidst the diverse challenges that are encountered, it said.

To assist the implementation agencies, the Technical Committee under the chairmanship of the Principal Scientific Advisor was constituted to identify new technologies and select high-end R&D proposals for funding.

The committee has representatives from science-related departments of the Government of India, IITs, state governments, NITI Aayog, NGOs and UNICEF.

The committee was set up in October 2019 and has met four times so far. It considered 114 innovative technologies and 84 R&D proposals and has accepted 10 innovative technologies and two R&D proposals for funding, it said.

"The fourth meeting of the Technical Committee was held on August 27 during which it considered six innovation proposals and eight R&D proposals. One of the R&D proposals considered in the meeting was undertaking IoT-based monitoring of drinking water quantity and quality in rural drinking water systems in different parts of the country, it said.

The proposal was presented by different CSIR labs coming together as partners.

The National Jal Jeevan Mission has two separate portals for recognition of innovations and funding R&D proposals in drinking water and sanitation sector.

Companies/ technology service providers desirous of getting their innovation accepted by the committee can upload them in the innovation portal.

The innovative technologies approved are in the areas of decentralised and packaged sewage treatment, treatment of grey water and black water using a combination of green plants and bacterial culture, drinking water disinfection using auto-chlorination, IoT-based electric vehicle for delivery of drinking water to households, water quality measurement kits using photometry and IoT-based water quality monitoring and disinfection.

One of the R&D proposals was developing an inexpensive hand-held user-friendly device to produce quality drinking water in an emergency such as a flood and which can be used to directly convert contaminated flood water into potable water.