Minty-fresh it may well taste, but there’s a reason you don’t swallow your fluoride toothpaste. If consumed at more than 1.5 milligram per litre, the mineral poses serious health hazards. But in the Mahbubnagar district, just south of Hyderabad, fluoride contamination has been a persistent problem and its cause cannot be linked to an affinity for toothpaste.
You need to dig just a little deep to learn that the soil and groundwater in the region have some of the highest levels of fluoride in India. Consequently, in some villages, 92 percent of residents suffer from ailments such as stiff joints and bone deformity, symptoms of fluorosis—a condition caused by ingesting excessive fluoride from untreated groundwater.
The good news: There has been a marked improvement in the health of the villagers in recent times, courtesy a joint initiative by Eureka Forbes and World Vision. They have evolved a rural water business model that serves a dual purpose: It alleviates the problem by involving the community, and also creates brand awareness for Eureka Forbes.
Since 2007, they have set up around 70 ‘community water plants’ in Andhra Pradesh alone and the benefits to local health have been marked. In Chatanpally, for instance, a village which saw the highest adoption rate of the Reverse Osmosis (RO) purified water at 44 percent, the local health worker reported a 60-percent reduction in diarrhoeal cases and a 100-percent reduction in enteric fever—classic fluorosis symptoms.
For the enterprising local who runs the plant, it is a win-win too: Goodwill, and up to Rs 6,000 per month from the 66 containers (each with 20 litres costing Rs 3) he sells every day. Eureka Forbes has installed hundreds of large purifiers called Water Shops in villages, and trained locals—like our businessman in Chatanpally—to run the plants and sell the water.
The Technology
Using advanced monitoring systems and central diagnostic centres, Eureka can track the level of impurity in each plant in real-time at their main lab, the Aquadiagnostics Water Research Technology Centre in Bangalore—the first Water Quality Association-certified laboratory outside the US.
By purifying the water at the borewell extraction stage and attaching sensors to the filter, it can monitor the quality of water being accessed by the community.
Sixteen regional labs, which analyse the water, have the ability to calibrate the plant to change its purification methods. This gives technicians a real-time understanding of the state of each plant and the option to send engineers to remote villages to address malfunctions. Further, the labs conduct water mapping of aquifers (the nature, structure and availability of underground water tables) on an ongoing basis. This information helps Eureka Forbes deliver better products.
For instance, in industrial areas, heavy metals like iron and chromium get dissolved in water. To tackle this, Eureka Forbes’s resin technology has a manganese oxide iron exchange that removes the heavy metal.
“Water changes its constituents season to season, month to month, year to year,” says Dr AV Suresh, CEO of Forbes Professional, the company’s cleaning services and water purification arm. “The challenge is what does the customer do if the water quality changes?” Citing the example of his home in Mumbai, he explains that the UV filter is effective only when municipal water flows from the taps. But, during water shortages, tanker water is added to the mix and, as a result, the ‘total dissolved solid’ goes up and the taste gets adversely affected.
The Market
There is obviously a clear need for water purification across the country. The contaminants are different— fluoride in the south, arsenic (from iron mining) in the east, salt and nitrates in the west and pesticides/fertilisers (from agricultural activity) in the north. Even in the slums of Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi and Mumbai, 56 percent of borewell and 37 percent of tanker water exceed permissible limits of contamination, according to a Monitor report.
The requirement, thus, is esta-blished. But what about the market?
Enough players are evincing interest in the rural water business. While brands like Tata’s Swach and Hindustan Unilever’s Pureit are predominantly selling home water purification solutions, Doshion Veolia is making larger-scale solutions available. Eureka Forbes has focussed on a target that lies in-between individuals and large-scale consumers—the community.
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(This story appears in the 09 August, 2013 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)
Great Work Eureka Forbes.. Here in Karnataka - Pavagoda
on Nov 24, 2013Very good steps. There are many people are suffering from skin and nerve diseases. I am living in Noida and here water contains harmful molecules and it taste like salt. For nothing to use it. We purchase water bottles for drinking and cooking but use same water for bathing. Please suggest one thing is it also harmful to bath from that water.
on Aug 5, 2013I guess if you cannot afford the water, you are required to suffer and die. Eureka! Your analysis of their disposable income is shallow to say the least for the simple reason that it assumes that all other basic needs are met ie sufficient nutrition, education and saving for retirement. When will the rich and intelligent become smart and responsible?
on Aug 2, 2013Very good news for the villagers. Here in Australia, they actually put fluoride into the water for teeth, to reduce cavities. They ignore the side effects to our health and make out it is harmless, even though it has never been proven safe. I think the villagers would tell them otherwise, but they don\'t listen to anybody who disagrees with them, other than to ridicule them. Para 9, I think you mean \'manganese oxide ion exchange\'
on Aug 1, 2013Defluoridation is the removal of excess fluoride from water. The National Environment Engineering Research Institute in Nagpur, India has evolved an economical and simple method of defluoridation, which is referred to as the Nalgonda technique. The Nalgonda technique has been repeatedly proven to be an economical and effective household defluoridation technique. In this commonly used technique, fluoride is precipitated using 500 mg/L of alum and 30 mg/L of lime. It has been found that the removal of fluoride from potable water is not adequate when initial concentration of fluoride in the water is very high and the pH of the untreated water is alkaline. Moreover, different degrees of hardness of water require different concentrations of alum. In experiments conducted by doubling the concentrations of alum and lime, water fluoride levels fell significantly
on Aug 1, 2013I am glad that Eureka Forbes has water purification plants for Rural India.Impure water is the root cause for many diseases Every 8 seconds, a child dies from water related disease around the globe. 50% of people in developing countries suffer from one or more water-related diseases. 80% of diseases in the developing countries are caused by contaminated water. Providing safe drinking water to the people has been a major challenge for Governments in developing countries. Conventional technologies used to disinfect water are: ozonation, chlorination and artificial UV radiation. These technologies require sophisticated equipment, are capital intensive and require skilled operators .Boiling water requires about 1 kg of wood/liter of water which results in deforestation in developing countries. Also halazone or calcium hypochlorite tablets or solutions (sodium hypochlorite at 1 to 2 drops per liter) are used to disinfect drinking water. These methods are environmentally unsound or hygienically unsafe when performed by a layperson. Misuse of sodium hypochlorite solution poses a safety hazard . Water filters,Solar Disinfection etc. have also been used in several countries. In Andhra Pradesh there was a project which was implemented in rural areas,a mobile water purification system fitted on an Auto. That was excellent. For reasons not known the scheme has not been extended. The need of the hour for rural areas is mobile water purification systems. Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP),India
on Aug 1, 2013