To monitor the rural drinking water supply systems in villages, the Ministry of Jal Shakti has decided to take the digital route to use sensor-based IoT devices to effectively monitor the implementation of Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) in more than six lakh villages.

For this, National Jal Jeevan Mission in collaboration with Tata Community Initiatives Trust (TCIT) and Tata Trusts completed pilot projects in several remote villages of five States i.e. Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Himachal Pradesh.

A key feature of these pilots has been the use of frugal yet sturdy sensors, which makes the solution scalable and sustainable, the Ministry of Jal Shakti said in a statement.

Several types of sensors have been deployed including flow meters, ground water level sensors, chlorine analyzers, pressure sensors, pump controller etc. to measure all the relevant aspects of water service delivery – quantity, duration, quality, pressure, and sustainability – in addition to providing operational efficiencies. The cloud and analytics powered IoT Platform is integrated with a GIS (Geographical Information System) providing a robust decision support system.

The Internet of Things (IoT) based remote monitoring provides near real-time information without any manual intervention by using sensors. This would not only allow effective monitoring and management on-ground, but also enable real-time visibility to State water supply/ PHED officials, and citizens.

With enormous gains in terms of operational efficiencies, cost reduction, grievance redressal, etc. Data will drive improvement in service delivery and instill transparency for precious natural assets such as water.

The pilots also demonstrated a first-of-its-kind comprehensive (source to tap) remote monitoring and control system in a completely off-grid (using solar and battery only) rural environment in Sirohi district, Rajasthan.

The pilots have led to several outcomes as it has helped identify distribution issues – such as outages, leakages, low pressure, etc. and led to resolution across sites. It recently alerted both officials and community regarding fast depleting groundwater levels, that led the villagers to build a source strengthening structure to recharge their borewell.

Other benefits observed include efficient and responsible use of water by the community and reduced cost of operations through data-enabled leak detection, predictive maintenance, and automation.