Three students of Odisha’s Kendriya Vidyalaya, Berhampur, have developed a ‘smart water dispenser’ to ensure equal distribution of drinking water through pipelines in any urban or rural habitat to combat future water crisis.
After participating in ‘Atal Tinkering Marathon 2018-19’, this innovative project, in August 2019 was shortlisted as top 50 innovations under ‘Atal Innovation Mission’ of Niti Aayog. This ‘smart water dispenser’ has been developed by P. Biswanath Patra of Class XI, Sawambhu Mandal and Sritish Kumar Gouda of Class X with support of their physics teacher Santosh Kumar Padhi.
Mr. Patra was in the team of 25 students and five teachers of India selected to attend ‘Deep Technology Program’ at Sochi, Russia, from November 30 to December 6, which was conducted by the Russian government in collaboration with ‘Atal Innovation Mission’. On the last day of training, Mr. Patra briefed Russian President Vladimir Putin, who appreciated the approach of the student.
On trial
The Commissioner of Berhampur Municipal Corporation (BeMC) and the local executive engineer of Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) have already shown interest in practical use of the project. “The BeMC Commissioner has requested for 15 units of our model for its trial,” said Mr. Padhi.
Mr. Patra’s parents are government servants and drinking water problem at their home in water scarce Berhampur persuaded him and the two other Class X students to design the project. Their aim was to ensure equal distribution of water through centralised monitoring to check its misuse.
The team surveyed different areas of the city to get feedback about the problem. It was found that many families used pumps to draw more water from pipelines that they unnecessarily stored in large sumps or in wells, while several families got little or no water supply.
‘Smart water dispenser’ is an electronic water flow controlling mechanism that can replace the water meter and provide control of amount of water supply to the authorities for equal distribution. Cost of the prototype was just ₹2,000. Its main components include an easily available microprocessor, a solenoid valve and a flow sensor.
As per Mr. Patra, water supply pipes to each house in an area can be fitted with these units. These units will be directly connected to a central server of the local governing body by GSM or Wi-Fi. The central server will decide and control supply of equal amount of water to every home as per need, supply or stock. No one will be able to take away more water from pipelines by pumps at the cost of others living in last or upper end of the pipelines. Added to it, the user will also have access to reduce or stop water supply to his or her home to reduce unnecessary misuse of water.
Institute principal Bighneswar Patnaik applauded the work of his students. After returning from Russia, Mr. Patra attended a national training camp being held at NISER, Bhubaneswar, till December 13 for students selected by the National Talent Search Examination.
