In May 2021, GSMA launched the GSMA Innovation Fund for Digital Urban Services with support from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO). The fund was open to start-ups and early-stage companies providing essential urban utility services who leverage digital innovations to make these services more accessible, reliable, sustainable and affordable. Successful organisations were awarded between £100,000 and £250,000 in grant funding and were provided with technical assistance. Pitches were received from 335 organisations in 43 countries across Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia, and from these, a cohort of nine organisations were selected. This blog series summarises the key learnings from the grant period.  

JanaJal is a pioneer in safe drinking water services in India and operates multiple static water ATMs and IoT-based mobile water delivery vehicles across Delhi, Ghaziabad, Surat, Maharashtra and other densely populated areas. They have developed a unique solution called the JanaJal WOW (Water-on-wheels) JJWOW, a custom-built vehicle that delivers safe water to the doorsteps of households in the last mile. During the 2019 India Water Week, the JanaJal WOW was recognised as a key innovation by the Jal Shakti Ministry and is already playing a critical role in the Government of India’s mission to make safe water available to every household. 

In the city of Delhi there are 800 listed unauthorised settlements and underserved communities, home to nearly two million people. Delhi as a whole has high rates for piped drinking water, over 75% of Delhi’s ~30 million residents having access to piped water at home. But in ‘notified slums’ (those recognised by the government) only 25% have piped water and 69% rely on public standpipes, while in ‘non-notified slums’ 44% of people rely on bottled water as their main drinking water source. Despite the demand for a reliable water source, and willingness to pay for safe water, people are forced to buy water from unreliable sources, such as private water tankers that lack quality assurance and are unable to reach many areas. These sources are often considerably more expensive, and considerably less safe, than the water provided by the utility. 

Purpose of the grant and key outcomes  

The GSMA supported JanaJal to launch 25 JJWOWs in three Delhi neighbourhoods. Each JJWOW is IoT-enabled and can distribute approximately 1,800 litres of water per day. They offer real-time monitoring of various quantitative and qualitative aspects such as water quality (TDS, pH, Water temperature) and volume of water dispensed to beneficiaries. Customers can also purchase water using various digital wallets/interfaces and touchless RFID Cards. 

The key grant outcomes:  

• The 25 WOWs were successfully launched and delivering safe drinking water to more than 12,000+ customers, 27.6% of whom are women. The apparently lower figure for women is due to the fact that many of the registered users will be a male household head, though in many cases it is the women of the household who will be collecting the water.  

• 96% of users reported it took them 15 minutes or less to access water.  The successful launch and operations of these 25 JanaJal WOW’s led to other donors commissioning additional JanaJal WOW’s in Ghaziabad region. This resulted in commissioning of total 33 JanaJal WOW’s during the grant period.  

• 95% of users reported better quality of drinking water being delivered and 97% of customers surveyed at endline reported they were ‘likely or ’very likely’ to recommend JanaJal to a friend.  

• Under the flagship scheme of AMRUT 2.0 Ministry of Housing and urban Affairs provided JanaJal grant and facilitated collaboration with Municipal Corporation of Ghaziabad, to serve the residents of city with safe drinking water. JanaJal successfully executed the Pilot with Municipal Corporation of Ghaziabad for scaleup under the AMRUT 2.0 Project pilot. JanaJal are now in ongoing discussions with municipalities across country facilitated by the Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI).  

• JanaJal was called upon and contributed to water distribution and relief drives especially during the intense water shortage and flood relief activities in Delhi in July 2023 distributing safe drinking water to 600+ affected households.  

Key learnings from the grant  

• JanaJal WOWs were able to provide a reliable and efficient service. Female beneficiaries ranked ‘Convenience’ aspect between 9 – 10 when it comes to the door-step services of JanaJal WOW. 90% of customers report only using JanaJal for drinking water since starting to use the service.  

• Customers were willing to pay a small price premium for the convenience and quality assurance in moving away from other water deliveries. 82% of customers reported using tanker water or other delivered water as their main drinking source prior to using JanaJal’s service. The average price paid of this delivered prior to JanaJal was Rs 15 for 20 litres (~$0.18), and JanaJal are priced at Rs 20. Combined with the customer satisfaction data and the ratings of JanaJal’s affordability, this indicates a willingness to pay for quality assured water. It should also be noted that approximately 14% of JanaJal’s customers used piped water as their previous main drinking water source at an average cost of Rs 5 for 20 litres.  

• Digital payments were readily adopted for the service. Only 8% of customers surveyed at the end of the grant reported using only cash to pay. 84% of users of the service already had a smartphone, and 90% reported the touchless RFID cards as their main means of payment. 15,832 beneficiaries already registered for digital payment services using the NFC cards. 

• Customers rated the quality of JanaJal water highly. JanaJal’s patented IoT technology platform – JJSUITE allows real time monitoring of key water quality parameters continuously from the point of collection to the point of delivery. This quality assurance was also reflected in customer perceptions of the water. On a scale of 1 to 10, 96% of customers rated the water eight or above for being clear, 94% eight or above for taste and the same percentage for being odourless.  

Next steps and scaling  

JanaJal was recently awarded a patent for their IoT tech platform JJSUITE by the Govt of India for 20 years. This adds to the WOW Design Patent which has been in force since 2019. With these in place JanaJal are looking at scaling in two major ways: i) through scaling their own operations within India, focusing on Delhi and the state of Uttar Pradesh, and ii) though licencing their product offering to water providers in other regions. JanaJal are also developing an EV prototype of JanaJal WOW, with the aim of lowering operational costs, and allowing them to maintain a low price for end customers. Since the end of the grant the number of WOW’s operational in Delhi has increased to 33, and JanaJal now have over 15,000 registered users and 8,000 app downloads.  

---

This initiative is currently funded by UK International Development from the UK Government and is supported by the GSMA and its members.