Bhubaneshwar: Piramal Sarvajal, through its resolute efforts has managed to maintain operations of its 40 water ATMs across Bhubaneswar thus ensuring that the citizens have access to safe drinking water. The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation has permitted Sarvajal to ply its water refilling vehicles and continue to refill the ATMs. This also includes maintenance services of the ATMs to ensure near 24×7 services to communities even in this time of a country-wide lockdown. The dependability of decentralized systems gets underlined as in the month of March 2020 itself, all 40 Water ATMs spread across the city in slums and public places, dispensed an all-time high of 4.70 lakh litres dispensed through 40 ATMs.
Piramal Sarvajal is taking all necessary precautions and is adhering to strict guidelines to ensure that all users practice safety while sourcing water.
Some of the measures include
● Training the field team to take all precautions and follow all government mandates.
● The push buttons to dispense water have now been disabled and all the ATMs in the city have been enabled with contactless card thus eliminating human touch
● Compulsion of social distancing of 1 meter is mandatory for the people who come to collect water from the ATMs
● Mandatory cleaning of the vessels before water is dispensed
● Ensuring that all the users are wearing face masks to avoid infecting others
● The ATMs and water plants are regularly sanitized
Piramal Sarvajal has also leveraged this opportunity, of the community gathering at the ATMs, to raise awareness on the best practices to protect oneself and others from this pandemic through-
a. Posters on hand washing tips
b. Wearing a face mask at all times while traveling outside the house
The social enterprise has gone a step ahead and has created audio messages for people who are not able to read or see these messages.
In May 2019 during cyclone “Fani” which hit Bhubaneshwar and caused untold damage and disruption of daily life, Piramal Sarvajal showed quick turnaround in resuming services of safe drinking water to the affected population. In a week’s time, 20 Water ATMs were repaired and ready for operation. Bhubaneshwar Municipal Corporation extended its full support by ensuring supply of raw water and electricity to operate the purification plants.
In 2015, Bhubaneshwar Municipal Corporation partnered with Piramal Sarvajal, seeded by Piramal Foundation, to establish 40 ATMs, mostly in slums. The water is treated through a combination of reverse osmosis and ultra-violate, and the water ATMs are solar powered.
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