Thejo Kote

Problem Unreliable, unpredictable and intermittent piped water supply

33%90%

33%

Urban areas with intermittent piped water supply (%)

Water Utility

Valve Areas

Valvemen

Individual Households

Water Utility

Valve Areas

Valvemen

Individual Households

Water Utility

Valve Areas

Valvemen

Individual Households

Water Utility

Valve Areas

Valvemen

Individual Households

Water Utility

Valve Areas

Valvemen

Individual Households

Water Utility

Valve Areas

Valvemen

Individual Households

Water Utility

Valve Areas

Valvemen

Individual Households

Household Costs

•Lose hours waiting

•Use unsafe borewell water

•Buy water at higher costs

•Keep children out of school

•Miss weddings, funerals, voting

Coping costs borne disproportionately by the poor

Utility Costs

•Cannot inform consumers about delivery

•Corruption among valve-men

•Slow to identify and address delays

•Conversion to continuous supply prohibitively expensive

Image: E. Lakshmi Narayanan, The Hindu

The NextDrop Solution

Leveraging the ubiquity of mobile phones to provide a timely, reliable information system for households

Provide water utilities with a cost-effective information system to manage irregular supply of piped water

http://www.flickr.com/photos/travel_aficionado/3185458618/

NextDrop Pilot: Hubli, India

Baseline study

Pilot: 2010

Engaging communities to

participate and send updates

• Information crowdsourced from

and verified by 180

participants in 7 valve areas

• Real-time updates when water

starts flowing

• Collected 250 data points and

sent 50 water timing updates

Comparative Study of SMS and IVR Systems

NextDrop improves this

information flow by

collecting and

aggregating in real-time

knowledge about water

timings, and making the

data accessible to city

residents and utility

employees.

The complexity of water

delivery is currently

recorded on paper data

logs

Information is rarely

aggregated and recorded

timings are often

inaccurate

NextDrop Solution: Partnering with the Water Utility

Engineer

Valveman

Valvemen update system

• Valvemen at multiple levels

update NextDrop through the

interactive voice response

system

• Automated information

collection and analysis

Engineers see real time updates

• Centralized

dashboard provides

real-time updates to

engineers and

residents.

• Allows engineers to

address problems as

they come up.

Residents receive SMS updates

• Types of information

contained in text

messages to residents:

• “Water will arrive in

30-60 minutes”

• “Water is flowing

now”

• “There is a last-

minute change to the

schedule”

Feedback Loop Provides Real-Time Data

• NextDrop collects crowd-

sourced updates

• Provides the water utility

feedback on true water

delivery outcomes

Social Impact

• Households save time, reduce stress and improve health outcomes

• Introduce transparency and accountability into the system

• Water utilities will reduce corruption and increase efficiency

Over a 5 year period

NPV of Social Benefits$15.9 million

Approx. $45 million accounting for PPP

550,600 days of missed school averted

Social Benefit to Cost ratio7.4 : 1

Future Opportunities

• Electricity

• Irrigation Water

• Food and Aid Shipments

• Pension Payments

• Public distribution system

Thank you

http://nextdrop.org

Social Return on Investment