Social Impact through a Water Route, JanaJal is Changing a Critical Issues of Drinking Water for All

The United Nations recognizes access to clean water as a basic human right. According to World Resources Institute (WRI), over 100 million people in India are living in areas where water is severely polluted. The Government of India estimates that 70 percent of available water is unfit for consumption without prior treatment. The WRI research also shows that 54 percent of the nation is facing high to extremely high water stress and this is only bound to get worse.

Lack of safe drinking water poses many health hazards such as diarrhea, cholera, and typhoid which have seen millions of registered cases during the past 3 years. In a quest for clean drinking water, research also indicates that on an average, women and young girls spend 700 hours every year filling and carrying water for home consumption which directly affects their economic productivity.

To address the grave problem of accessibility to water, Parag Agarwal, Founder & CMD started JanaJal in 2013. With a mission to make safe drinking water accessible for all, the social enterprise, over the past year, has expanded to different parts of India with a major focus being on Maharashtra and Delhi NCR.

The company currently has nearly 450 systems operating in different parts of India with major focus being on Maharashtra and Delhi NCR.

Recently, JanaJal bagged contracts from the New Delhi Municipal Corporation and Ghaziabad Nagar Nigam to install a combination of 150 fixed and mobile water systems  along with further additions to nearly 100 water ATMs installed in the Mumbai region at various railway stations through IRCTC.The company is now preparing to maximize its operating efficiency across all existing systems to be able to cater to the expected surge in demand during the upcoming summer season. JanaJal’s philosophy is aligned with the Government of India’s Swachh Bharat initiative.

Initially bootstrapped by its founders, in February 2017, JanaJal secured an investment of $5 million from Tricolor Cleantech Capital, a social impact fund based in the US.The investment is being utilized to scale up its footprint and operations that is expected to touch 1000 by the end of 2018.

JanaJal is a social enterprise that install, operates and maintain Water ATMs using its own capital investment under concession of minimum 5years to make safe drinking water available to the people.

Revenue is generated from the consumer who pay for the water based on their requirement, the company utilise this reenue for installation and maintenance of Water ATMs.

The social enterprise remotely monitors all the ATMs using cloud-based IT infrastructure. The cloud-based system works in real time. It not only provides dispensing data but also system health, purity level of water dispensed, and enables us to ensure smooth functioning of the system.

This initiative help in tackling the problem of water scarcity as JanaJal works with an AAA philosophy which is making safe water Available, Accessible and Affordable. Its focus lies only on potable water that is used by households daily for drinking and cooking. This is done by installing, operating and maintaining water ATMs at various public places such as railway stations, bus stands, places of religious worship, urban slums, etc where the need for water is acute.

JanaJal’s laser focus on being a water services company is its biggest differentiator versus the other companies in India. Availability of safe water at a nominal cost is the biggest social impact that JanaJal delivers. In addition to this, the company focusses on creating jobs for the youth, imparts training and upskills them to work as operators on water ATMs thereby earning a livelihood, reduces the generation of empty plastic bottles that are considered to be the biggest pollutant for the environment.

JanaJal aims to make “Right to Water” a reality in the lives of every Indian through efficient services and extended reach for delivery through WOW – Water on Wheels. The company is working very closely with various global corporates and technology companies to be able to increase its operating efficiency and serve more and more people in a consistent manner.