Alumni Ventures
“For too long, information, opportunities, and resources have been constraints, they need to be the bridges.”
– Sharad Vivek Sagar
The rise of social entrepreneurship reflects a growing sense today that many of the most promising solutions to global problems don’t necessarily depend on charity, government aid, or foundation grants. They come from individuals at the grassroots level willing to bring entrepreneurial thinking to bear on some of our various toughest social problems. Having the vision to become a social entrepreneur is great. Making it happen is another story! 
Let me bring forward the story of one such successful entrepreneur, Mr. Anjan Mukherjee, PGP 1989, the founder of Taraltec Solutions Private Ltd. He has tackled problems related to sanitation and water borne diseases by introducing The Taraltec Water Disinfection Reactor which kills microbes in water from a bore well hand-pump & motorized water lines, thereby eliminating water borne diseases such as diarrhoea, cholera & typhoid.
In the following interview he shares his much inspiring story and also talks about the initiative he has taken and how it’s evolving gradually.
Q: Describe the problem or the root cause you’re trying to address.
According to WHO and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme Report of 2015, 663 million people, 1 in 10, lack access to safe water. It is estimated that over 1.4 billion people in 36 countries will be without proper drinking water by the year 2025. Due to the poor quality of sanitation and resultant water borne diseases 1.5 million children die of diarrhea every year. Cholera and typhoid cause widespread casualty. 73 million working days are lost to water borne diseases each year. Despite an estimated total of Rs. 1,105 billion spent, since 1951, there is a lack of safe and secure drinking water. $ 600 Million is the estimated economic burden per year. Conventional methods used to tackle unsafe water are not enough. Water is boiled or disinfectants are used or filters are installed. The drawbacks are that they come at a recurring price. There is a need for regular specialized monitoring and inventory of spares.
Q: Describe how your innovation solves the problem.
The Taraltec Reactor disinfects water to eliminate water borne diseases. The Scientific Principle propelling the Taraltec Reactor is inspired by bio mimicry. Just as in nature, a snapping shrimp (Alpheidae) attacks its prey by shooting a je of water by snapping its claw, causing cavitation bubbles to form as the ambient pressure goes below the vapour pressure. On recovery of the ambient pressure, this bubble implodes with an intense localized energy release, with temperatures to the extent of several thousand degrees, pressures of several hundred bars with intense shear & turbulence. This energy is harnessed to create precise conditions for physically killing the microbes.
The Taraltec Water Disinfection Reactor that kills microbes in water from borewell hand-pump & motorized water lines, eliminating water borne diseases such as cholera & typhoid has NIL opex, low capex and nor there is any maintenance or any need for electricity.It can easily be retrofitted into a hand pump- such as the India mark 2 Model the most widely used hand pump in the world), or even into any motorized bore well within an hour by even a local plumber, by just sliding the reactor into the hand pump water tank or attaching inline of the discharge side of the motorized water pump.
Q: Who is the end customer?
The target users of product is the underserved population who have no access to safe drinking water, which makes them prone to many ailments. The target customer for this segment is the government, corporates through their CSRs, HNIs and individuals and industry for other applications.
Q: What is your current or proposed revenue model?
For borewell hand pump our customers are government, corporate CSRs, NGOs, High net worth individuals who are into philanthropies etc. For pressurized water lines, the users would be individuals and the industry who by themselves have the capacity to pay for devices for cooling tower waters, motorized borewell, swimming pools etc.
Q: How big is the market?
In India the total market size for borewell hand pumps are about 30L units (inr1500cr). For pressurized water lines, like, in submersible pumps, lakes, ponds, wells, industrial applications around 20L units (inr5000cr). The worldwide market hasn’t been explored.
Q: What is the unique competitive advantage of your innovation? Please quantify if possible.
Our device requires NIL operating costs, very low capital costs, requires no spares or consumables and is fit. This device can be retrofitted by a local plumber in less than one hour. As is obvious this cannot be compared to any known (to me) existing method or device. The cost benefit analysis also is not comparable.
Q: Who is your competition?
Convention methods like boiling water, disinfectants like chlorine, filtration , RO & similar.
Q: What is your motivation for developing this technology and whom might be impacted the most by your technology?The project is for the very bottom of the pyramid who don’t have access to any sort of water disinfection and neither does have the capacity to maintain or even to have access to any medical facilities in its near vicinity. The direct beneficiary would be the people as they would not contact water borne diseases like diarrhea etc. which is a potent killer if unattended and the public health system as the water borne cases are the most rampant in the under served areas. Quantifiable data is extensively available in the public domain from government reports. Diarrhea is the third most mass killer of infants worldwide not to mention loss of wages for even an adult and his family if someone contracts this. Working to get high technology to the absolute “have not’s” is I believe the way to go…
Q: Please describe your project implementation plan for the next 3 months? ( Including goals/ milestones/resource utilization)
In the next three months, we need to identify the areas where waterborne diseases are rampant. Then we would initiate the baseline survey around various geographies after supplying our device and also initiate the fund raising. After this we need to start the identification of personnel to fill the gaps in the team and continue the ongoing process of sales and user feedback from the already installed units.
Q: What are the biggest challenges you are facing to commercialize your innovation or technology?
The challenges for any new technology for entry to old world industries are many. The first one being to convince people to try it out for which, many permissions are needed mostly from the government. Then identifying manpower to do the job at the grassroots…we have partially overcome this issue by going through corporate CSRs of companies and lastly funds! We are presently bootstrapping.
A sneak peek at how Taraltec is adopting hybrid technologies to eradicate waterborne diseases-
The below video shows Mr. Anjan Mukherjee explaining the functioning of the Taraltec Reactor to the Honorable PMs of Israel and India, Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu and Mr. Narendra Modi.
Graylogic – Recognized & Nominated By MHRD, Government of India
The company Graylogic has been recognized and nominated for award from MHRD, Government of India. The company has developed entire Software on SVP, Swachh Vidyalaya Puraskar. Approximately, 19 lakhs schools across India are participating in this survey. This initiative has been effectively giving positive results on sanitation, cleanliness, school performance dynamically through this program.
Bhanu Varla, EGMP 2005, Founder & Director of Graylogic said, ” We are proud to share with you all that Graylogic successfully implemented Swachh Patashala, Swach Nirmal Vidyalay, S3 Andhra, GHMC Apps, Police Challan, Drunken Drive applications, CSR with Government, Swach Warangal and many more are our successful Government projects. Now we are working with Government of Andhra Pradesh on Swachha Andhra.”
Most of these projects are in collaboration with UNICEF, Mellinda Gate Foundation and ASCII.
Sneak peeks:
