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

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 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 ratio 7.4 : 1

Future Opportunities Electricity Irrigation Water Food and Aid Shipments Pension Payments Public distribution system

Thank you

Social Return on Investment