INDIA OF TOMORROW TECH TAKES A
Gandhi said Cleanliness is next tO Godliness. Modi said let’s have a Swachh Bharat. IoT technologies are gradually bringing swachh Godliness to the future smart cities
Just digest these facts: • $54bn Indian GDP is lost every year due to lack of sanitation • 200,000 deaths every year owing to basically lack of toilets and poor awareness of personal feminine hygiene • 18% of Indian households still lack toilets • 12% of Indian population still defecate in the open • 40% of toilets in Indian schools are in various states of disrepair (either no water or no doors) • 60% dropouts amongst girls once they reach puberty (no toilet doors and no provision in schools to change sanitary pads) Looking at those facts, it will definitely occur to you; are we living in a hell? Sanitation is the basic necessity and yes, transition is happening in developing India to achieve smart, sustainable sanitation for all and with this various business models with the help of IoT have emerged. Especially various SMBs are quite fanatic, and working on digitization of sanitation. Infact, government
too is encouraging digital industry to develop and adopt. In turn they ought to give society lower cost devices for better tomorrow.
In this context, the Swachh Bharat Mission driven by the PM Modi from October 2, 2014 assumes special significance. Slated to be completed in 5 years by October 2, 2019 this program has at least embarked on correcting the course of action. But as in Robert Frost’s words, “There are miles to go, before…”
A Loo on the Highway
Consider girls from even privileged classes travelling long distance in buses. There are numerous instances where these girls have been forced to hold on because there are not adequate loos (or extremely dirty ones) on the highways.
The solution is the mobile app PeeProvider that helps you locate a `shauchalaya’ when you are desperate to pee. “While toilets will be convenient for everyone, it is obviously of more benefits to girls”, says Moksh Juneja, Marketing Head, Avignyata, a Mumbai based digital agency and creator of Peeprovider.com.
“During a road trip from Bangalore to Mumbai, a friend of mine accompanied by her husband got severely infected due to the use of a dirty and unhygienic toilet falling on their way. And guess what, they had to cancel their plans even before they touched Goa. This incident persuaded me to answer the budding issue of unhygienic loo which led to the inception of PeeProvider – an application that helps you to find the nearest loo which is also rated by the user whether it is well maintained,” says Juneja.
PeeProvider is a mobile application on Apple and Android that help people find toilets within the radius of 1.5 kms. Currently, they have mapped 10,000 toilets in 22 Indian cities and plan to do 15,000 toilets in 30 cities and in highways between these cities. They are crowdsourcing ratings of these toilets.
IoT in Toilets
Another Startup entrepreneur Mayank Midha has developed sustainable technology solution Garv toilets. Installed in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana, these toilets have advantage of technology over common toilets. Auto-flush sensors works before and after each use, radio frequency and IoT sensors provide real-time updates on usage and any malfunctioning. These updates are sent to a dashboard, which can be constantly monitored from a remote location.
The toilets are made of stainless steel to use less water, another plus point for environment perspective. Finally, we can say, technology and innovation is attracting masses to use these toilets especially in tier 2 and 3 cities and villages.
While SMBs are doing their parts, government is also active in leveraging technology in sanitation. Recently, Ghaziabad administration has launched a mobile application for officials locate areas where people defecate in the open. Volunteers and monitoring committees will now be able to send complaints and Google map locations of open defecation.
Swachhtagrah app is available on the Google play store, however its use is not for all but is restricted to volunteers and monitoring committee members registered with the district open defecation free (ODF) control room.
“PeeProvider is a mobile application on Apple and Android that help people find toilets within the radius of 1.5 Kms.” “Having sensors placed in toilets so you know how many users have used a flushing system & hygiene practices of the community to be able to design a behaviour change and communications plan.”