Baddi to get pure water through ATM

Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, August 26

The state’s first purified water ATM will be installed soon at Jharmajri village in the industrial hub of Baddi.

A Mohali firm will install the machine. The machine will help provide purified and chilled water to people at a nominal cost of Re 1 for 300 ml, Rs 2 for 1 litre and Rs 15 for 20 litre.

Since the availability of clean drinking water to people is a challenge in Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh (BBN) which is marred by pollution, this ATM will provide a viable option.

The idea was mooted by Lalit Jain, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Baddi Barotiwala Nalagarh Development Authority (BBNDA). Space has been allotted to the company at Jharmajri for five years.

Jain said they planned to install at least 100 such ATMs in the BBN after gauging the success of the first machine.

An official of the company said the purified water ATM was a coin-operated water vending machine, with an in-built water purifier and chiller.

“The machine uses raw water and converts it into clean drinking water as per the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) specifications,” he said.

He said the machine also had an inbuilt provision for washing and cleaning of 20 litre jar with an automatic jar washing and cleaning machine.

“There is also a provision for the storage of 500 litre raw water and 500 litre purified chilled water keeping in mind the gap between the demand and supply of water,” he said.

He said they started working on the machine three years back after studying the report of the World Health Organisation (WHO) on the contaminated ground water in Baddi. Hence, they decided to come out with a bigger machine.

“We started working on the portability of the machine and introduced its smaller. The ATM is now a plug and play model that can be customised as per the space and need. It’s portable and handy to install easily,” he said.

It is priced at Rs 5.5 lakh and the revenue generated by the daily collection will take care of its operation and maintenance.

The company has also designed and manufactured water ATM machine as per the railways specifications and will be installed at railway stations all over the country.