COVID 19 Response

The immediate focus of Piramal Sarvajal was to continue service (supply) of safe drinking water at our 1000+ locations without compromising on the safety of our field staff and community members.

As an immediate Reaction Mode, we did the following

1.   Ensuring safe service

  • Provided necessary training on disinfecting premises at all points of contact to field staff including operators and drivers.
  • Extensive Sanitization drives at both plant and ATM areas of all our locations
  • Maintaining daily sanitization of plants and especially ATMs at frequent intervals
  • Social distancing markings to ensure queuing at 1 metre distance.
  • Permission taken from Municipal Corporation and local panchayats for ensuring uninterrupted service to communities.

2.   Communication drives

  • Awareness drives via posters, videos and audio clips at intervention points to ensure right communication and reinforcement every time users come to collect water
  • Operators, our primary line of communication with community members ensured communication on COVID19 precautions with the village community.
  • Operators given information on safety measures to be taken, symptoms and helpline numbers and testing labs to connect with in case of symptoms as per government norms.

3.   Ongoing precautions on ground

  • Asking users to wash their hands and utensils before filling water and providing soap and water.
  • Practicing social distancing without supervision while waiting in queue to collect water.
  • Regular calls and follow-ups with field teams, including ATM operators and drivers to ensure daily sanitization. And to check on the health of communities

4.   Enabling local support activities

It is heart-warming to note that in some of our locations, the operators repurposed themselves and their activities to support the community during these times

  • Supporting the village sanitization drives with the Sarpanch and mobilizing youth groups
  • Leveraging their awareness of the village community by helping the Sarpanch shortlist needy families of the village for provision of food staples
  • Some of our operators are helping incoming members from other cities by supporting Sarpanch for quarantine of these members in a safe place while taking care of their needs including food.

5.   Redesigning of our technology

  • For few of our ATMs which are button operated, meaning that users need to touch the button to start dispensing, was an area of concern for us as possibilities of contamination was high.
  • We redesigned our firm ware for these ATMs within a few days and updated the firmware through our drivers, within a week and our ATMs changed from button operated to Water card scan dispensing.
  • Actual year-to-date spends compared to the budget and reasons for variance.
  • In respect of activities undertaken through outside Trust/Society/NGO's etc. there will be mechanism of reporting of progress on each such activities and the amount incurred thereon.

Outstanding efforts by all the village level

A few stories which capture the exemplary efforts being taken by our field staff on the ground:

  • At 9 villagers, our operators helped in sanitizing the entire village with the help of Gram Panchayats
  • In 8 villages, our operator mobilized villagers to arrange funds for helping the needy families in their respective villages.
  • Considering the exodus of migrant laborers back to their villages, our operators supported in making arrangements for stay and food in 3 villages
  • There has been distribution of masks and soaps done in 18 villages via local bodies
  • Distribution of ration and essential items by raising funds within the village.(18 villages)
  • At Salasar,Rajasthan,Balaji mandir trust donated 11 lakhs for the welfare of the village. Same village saw political rivals overcome their personal differences to support the villagers by donating funds and distributing ration to the needy. 4 tailors stitched 5000 masks to be distributed free in the village.
  • In 4 villagers our operators raised funds to distribute ration, food, masks and soap to the villagers.
  • At Navi Mandardi, due to submersible pump break down our operator along with 2 others villagers are manually filling a 2000litres tank twice a day so that safe drinking water can be served to the communities.
  • At Siya, MP , landlords have not charged rent to the migrant labours.
  • At Nimgaon, MH, cash was directly transferred to the accounts of the beneficiaries and copy of passbook and adhar taken as proof.
  • At Kharkhari,Haryana Sarpanch paid for the villagers who did not have money to recharge their cards to take water from our ATM
  • In Banta ,Rajasthan, in the absence of the operator, his family is operating the plant with the help of soochak’s instructions.

Conclusion:

Safe drinking water is an essential service, during COVID 19 this service was recognized as essential during lockdown by the government. 94% machines were operational during the lockdown period.