India, apart from other challenges, is facing the grave issue of providing the nearly 1.2 billion inhabitants with access to safe drinking water. Various water sources contain large amounts of contaminants such as industrial effluents, sewage, agriculture and urban waste. Also, the infrastructure needed to deliver drinking water both in urban and rural areas is either non-existent or needs substantial upgrades to meet demand. It is estimated that the annual impact of water borne diseases in India affects 37.7 million persons annually including the loss of 73 million working days and the death of 1.5 million children from diarrhea alone.

Burgeoning Demand for Clean Water

India is the fourth-largest market for water treatment equipment in Asia-Pacific. In 2016, it accounted for a market share of 11.0%, in terms of value, of the water treatment equipment market in Asia- Pacific. It is also projected to be an emerging market because of the growing municipal manufacturing industries, increase in investments from the international companies for setting up their production plants in the country, and increasing demand for treated water from the population. The major drivers of the increasing demand for water treatment include increasing population, rapid urbanization, increasing pressure on quality maintenance of municipal water supplies, and stringent policy regulations.

Market Dynamics

The Way Forward:

To address this challenge of providing safe and clean drinking water to people in India, organizations today are looking at ways to optimize costs, increase productivity, and enhance customer satisfaction. Many Indian consumers are using point-of-use (POU) water purifiers which run on the following technologies for removal of persistent as well as emerging pollutants from water:

• Ultraviolet technology (UV)
• Ultra filtration (UF)
• Nano filtration (NF)
• Reverse Osmosis (RO)
• Iodine or Chlorine as disinfectant

However, majority of the existing water purifiers do more harm than good through the RO+UV technique. UF cartridge in them is unable to remove harmful chemicals such as Arsenic, Lead, Chromium & Pesticides etc. Also, during RO filtration a portion of water is passed through UF purification only which leads to mixing of pure & impure water towards the end of the process which contradicts the major purpose of the entire purification process. More importantly, this lowers the pH of water below 7 which deteriorates the quality and taste of water.

New Technology from Havells:

The latest entrant in market, Havells (a leading billion-dollar electrical equipment conglomerate in India), is all set to address such issues and transform the purification process through its powerful 8-stage purification process and ultimately delivering clean and safe drinking water to people of India.

Havells water-purifiers provides absolute safety through 100% RO and UV Purification to ure safe and healthy drinking water. The product’s mineralz fortification technology balances pH level of purified water and re-mineralises it by adding naturally occurring essential minerals and salts. Another major component of these water-purifiers is the revitalizer which restructures water molecules, making it biologically active and hence improves the bio-availability and absorption of water in the body.

Havells has launched six variants into the market that are priced between Rs 10,499 and Rs 23,999. Consumers can also enjoy very consumer-friendly post-purchase maintenance packages which can be modified as per the need. These variants are packed with advanced consumer-friendly features making it convenient to install and use with elements such as purification process indicator, capacitive smart touch user interface (in high-end variant) and 3 smart programmable dispensing options providing ease of operation.

You can learn more about product features of all the variants and best-in-class double UV purification technology by clicking here. These are readily available at your nearest consumer retail store and will be made available online on all leading ecommerce portals in coming months. Watch this space for more on this looming crisis of non-availability of clean drinking water, the challenges in addressing this and how an innovative company like Havells can overcome these issues by adoption of the latest technology and consumer-friendly design.