Of all the water that exists on our planet, around 97% is salt water. Of the 3% or so of fresh water available, almost half of it remains frozen in glaciers, ice caps, or deep underground aquifers. Yes – just around 1.5% is available for our use, making every drop count. Further, with continuing population growth and industrial growth, demand continues to escalate in a supply-constrained domain.

Improving the Lives in Rural India by Technology-enabled Solutions

This challenge is even more acute in India given the very high-population density and resulting in further pressures on the overall water chain. Even after almost 70 years since India’s independence, many remote villages have highly contaminated water sources with extremely high levels of dissolved solids, fluoride, iron, arsenic, and other toxic components. With the myriad of tough challenges in the water domain, the spectrum of promising innovations is also amazing – from a variety of water purification approaches (from home use to industrial-scale) to lake and spring rejuvenation to de-silting of age-old water tanks to water conservation techniques to micro-irrigation systems to smart crop-rotations to borewell recharging systems – almost boundless excitement of opportunities. Given the scale of the problem (nearly 1.4 Billion people and a huge geography expanse from world-record rainfall & floods to nearly no annual rainfall), it is paramount to leverage resources across the spectrum – public & private, individual entrepreneurship to non-profits.

 

WHEELS Water Council has set out its vision to become ‘trusted partners’ to catalyze holistic rural resurgence through Collaborative Governance for rural infrastructure and, integrated water conservation and management with technology as the enabler.

 

Its mission is to drive interventions for use of appropriate technology in the country at scale with collaborative multi-stakeholder partnerships, and leverage best practices spanning academia, scientific and research organizations, IITs, social enterprises, grassroots organizations, Industry, and others.

 

We have multiple projects driven through close partnerships with several like-minded organizations.

WHEELS Water Domain Thought Leaders

Mr Raj Kumar Malhotra

WHEELS is privileged to have access to a foremost authority on the Water domain, Mr. Raj K Malhotra. At our request, he has captured his 70+ years of wisdom, experience, and innovations in an upcoming book.

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Born on 02 January 1929, Mr. R. K. Malhotra graduated in Civil Engineering with Honors in 1952 and joined the Punjab Irrigation Department in December 1952 on the world-famous Bhakra Nangal Project. He was associated with the construction of a 225 m high straight gravity concrete dam which ranked amongst the highest dams in the world. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister described this project as: “Bhakra Nangal Project is something tremendous, something stupendous, something which shakes you up when you see it. Bhakra, the new temple of resurgent India, is the symbol of India’s progress.”

Presently, Mr. Malhotra is actively involved in the Bank-funded DRIP (Dam Rehabilitation & Improvement Projects) in India. He reviews the Project Screening Templates and Bid Documents of various dam projects proposed to be rehabilitated and furnishes his technical comments and suggestions to the World Bank on the final remedial measures to be adopted for the rehabilitation of respective dams and appurtenant works.

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Mr. Malhotra’s 9 technical papers concerning the important / critical works executed by him during his professional career in the Government organizations have been published in the International Journals. He has been a member of various Technical Committees and also participated in several International Seminars.

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