Top 5 problems that IoT can solve in India — Part 1

India as a developing country is consistently facing challenges with crucial elements of achieving sustainable development in the long run. As the geographically third largest country in Asia with over a population of 1.2 billion, (second largest in the word) and rapid race to achieve the status of a developed country in all realms, challenges are on the rise that have kept the economy in a standstill. For any country to achieve sustained developments, it must give word to commitment, planning and execution/action. Such is the mantra of success. Well, unfortunately this success mantra seems to be fractured in India with gaps in technology awareness and collaboration for achieving desired results. Good news is that smart technologies such as Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics can solves these challenges and bridge the success mantra.
The following are top 5 challenges that require immediate attention:
· Water Crisis
· Air Pollution
· Waste Management
· Traffic Regulation
· Energy Usage Monitoring
For the context of this article, let’s look at how Internet of Things (IoT) can help to solve the first challenge.
Starting with the first current problem India is victim to is Water Crisis:
Water Crisis — As keenly observed, the earth’s surface is filled with 97% of saline water and only 3% of water is safe for drinking. Water crisis is one of the biggest global challenge, but India is on the greater risk of facing this issue in terms of its severity. As estimated in the NITI Aayog (a government think tank) report, 21 Indian cities will run out of water by 2020, stressing the availability of water for 600 million people. This reflects the immediate need of action in water conservation in India.
Key contributors of this Challenge:
There exist no problems without causes, therefore it is important to first understand causes to further investigate and explore solutions. Let us briefly perceive the causes of water crisis in India;
- One of the top reasons of water crisis as a threat in India is large scale water wastage due to unlimited factory usage, lack of awareness and extensive water wastage.
- Climate change that is affecting uneven monsoons in India is another reason for diminishing water levels in certain areas and flooding in certain others.
- Lack of accessible data regarding water storage levels to common consumers.
- Water pollution in India also adds fuel to already burning fire of crisis due to lack of cleaning processes.
- Lack of recycling technology acquisition in governance units, enterprise business and factories of various capacities as the next contributing cause to water scarcity in India.
Some of the possible Solutions to address or mitigate this crisis:
- Create awareness about current water availability, shortage and the needs of water conservation among consumers by propagating data as alerts.
- Adopt rainwater harvesting and water shed management techniques to measure, predict and conserve water.
- Establish smaller, medium and larger water storage / tanks across country to preserve the rain and river water create outlets to transfer water when flooding.
- Enforce modern drip irrigation techniques to limit the water supply to agro, garden and other commercial areas that prevent water wastage.
- Enforce recycling centers across country that features measuring pollution level of water and recycle to industrial facilities as cost per usage basis.
- Encourage rainwater harvesting and agro-forestry business model to farmers to save water and gain monetary benefits.
How IoT based technology helps to achieve above solution:
- IoT solutions are primarily helpful to sense conditions and generate data out of it. Therefore, it can be applied in various situations to measure the water level, pollution, usage and so on.
- IoT based water sensors can be deployed at water storage tanks to measure the water availability levels. It can be set at a lower threshold to trigger alerts.
- Data regarding water levels, water pollution stats, flow meter are consistently collected and transmitted to a network cloud through wireless communication.
- With the streaming analytics method data transferred to cloud is filtered, structured and further information is intimated to stakeholders in readable stats through predictive analytics method upon reaching threshold. This can help to predict and plan to save enormous amounts of water.
- Another method, IoT sensors can be deployed in water pumps or irrigation techniques with a set threshold. This enables a smart pump in irrigation and households that is now capable of automatic shutdown which prevents overflowing of water tanks. More people following such methods = more water conserved.
- Creating a water storage meter system to measure the overall water availability and consumption level to community or regional users through messaging techniques to create awareness of water usage and wastage.
In conclusion, as a recipient of such technology titled as smart technology of the 4th industrial revolution, the IoT can create a big difference in a country that is at the verge of entering water non availability for purposes of survival.
At Factana, we are committed to help non-profit organization, farmers and institutions to deploy IoT based solution using our Fogwing Industrial IoT Platform to measure and prevent water usage.
Please don’t forget to read part 2 of this article series to understand how IoT technologies can help to solve “Air Pollution” issues.

