[scdoshi]

Looks like a really good idea.

How do you plan on scaling without becoming part of the water mafia (or at least enabling them)?

After all, there are only so many independent suppliers with their own water source.

Would love to hear you thoughts on this.

[anusridharan]

That's a really good point. We've had to think long and hard about this one too. There's one interesting stat that is less known. Aboout 80% of India runs on groundwater, and in cities, we have estimated that about 50% of the people have their own private water source. BUT- less than 1% sell that water. Now imagine we've used devices to aggregate all demand (phase I). Phase II would be to introduce new supply into the market. Enabling anyone with a borewell to sell water to anyone else. The biggest cost of private water right now is diesel transportation costs. When we implement Phase II, we want to enable more micro entrepreneurs to sell water hyper locally, driving down water costs. We'll have to do this carefully, but that's the only way we see not becoming the mafia and doing our part to make clean water more and more accessible to people.

[chappar]

>>we have estimated that about 50% of the people have their own private water source. BUT- less than 1% sell that water.

I appreciate that you are trying to solve this important issue. I was wondering if individuals selling bore water is legal in India

[ceejayoz]

> Enabling anyone with a borewell to sell water to anyone else.

What happens when the neighborhood loses its water sources due to overuse?

[anusridharan]

Yup, that's something we have to monitor carefully. That's why the backbone to our business is actually IoT devices that transmit data to monitor different aspects of water. We're starting with data around water withdrawals, and moving to using devices to monitor groundwater levels. We think we can collect enough data from our devices to model groundwater aquifer health, something that very few people are doing due to lack of data and overall costs. Once we can monitor aquifer health, we can make sure that we are not overdrawing, and recharging effectively.

[scdoshi]

Monitoring aquifer health seems like a good approach to start with. Great to see you have thought about the issues.

Water is an ethically challenging area to start a business in, but the status quo in India is pretty bad, so I hope you do well!

[anusridharan]

Thank you so much- we really appreciate it!

[puranjay]

I thought of this too. Water is a tricky thing to deal in because it isn't like any other resource. When you sell water to someone, are you also depriving water to someone else?

This can easily turn into an ethical minefield if you aren't careful.

[anusridharan]

This is true- and I'll rephrase what you're saying. What are the environmental impacts of groundwater withdrawals? If someone is withdrawing, who else isn't getting water? These are exceedingly tricky issues, and the sad part is that right now, nobody knows the answer because there is no data to answer these important questions. The first step, which we are implementing from day 1, is to use IoT devices to monitor groundwater withrdawals from our sources. The next critical piece on our product roadmap is creating IoT devices to monitor groundwater levels and using algorithms to estimate groundwater aquifer health. Given that we will be aggregating demand and understand withdrawals, this second piece will be able to estimate our natural resource health in a city for the first time. This technology advancement is critical for not just India, but the world. Once we know which aquifers are depleting the fastest we can try to recharge and use a different aquifers. This is the only way we think the world can start managing groundwater and ensure everyone has enough clean water to drink.

[suryaprakki]

Aren't the drying bore wells and depleting ground water levels a testimony to that? http://bangaloremirror.indiatimes.com/bangalore/others/water...