The mobile water station will have a sump to store raw water, a water purifier to treat it and a dispenser
Chennai: A final year B.Tech (dual) civil engineering student at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, an environmentalist and an industrial designer have teamed up to set up over 300 eco-friendly mobile drinking water kiosks across Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Karnataka. Their company is called Amrutdhara.
“Ours is not yet another water selling station, but a different one, aimed at providing a safe, inexpensive and eco-friendly alternative to bottled water. We don’t use plastic bottles to refill purified drinking water, but reuse glass bottles and provide water at Rs 3 per litre, which is cheaper than the market rates,” said Sandeep Jaiswal, the B.Tech student, IIT-M.
The mobile water station will have a sump to store raw water, a water purifier to treat it and a dispenser. “We need an investment of Rs 6 lakhs per station. Funding is not a problem, we are confident that our concept will have takers,” he added.
Villgro, an incubator, Amrutdhara as part of their entrepreneur-in-residence programme. The start-up has also won the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Bengaluru’s National Students’ Challenge last year.
“We are now in talks with Tamil Nadu and Puducherry governments, besides the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) to set up our mobile kiosks in public places, like bus stands, railway stations and beaches,” Sandeep said.
The start-up did a pilot study of Marina Beach, Broadway bus stand and spots in Puducherry to understand how acceptable people found purified drinking water in glass bottles. Sandeep and his team members, Minhaj Ameen and Akshay Roongta, have planned to launch an awareness campaign to scrap plastic bottles at Puducherry beach from March 29 to 31 in partnership with Play Design Studio.
