In 2009, several villages in Maharashtra faced a plethora of health problems due to excessive fluoride in their drinking water.

A young engineer, Abhijeet Gan, a BITS Pilani graduate, worked on creating a solution to alleviate this problem in Dongargaon, one of the affected villages.

He built a water purification technology using electrolysis to remove fluoride from water through his venture, Rite Water Solutions.

His innovative method caused fluoride compounds to settle, providing the villagers with clean, fluoride-free water. This project in 2009 kicked off his mission to provide clean drinking water to every household in the country.

Recognising the need of the hour, Abhijeet partnered with the Maharashtra government to install 50 water purification plants across the state.

The patented technology uses the process of electrochlorination for disinfection. Simply put, they use chlorine to purify the water.

“What’s unique about this is the fact that we generate chlorine onsite from common salt, without chemicals. Our plant converts a salt solution into chlorine. This makes it easy to apply in any village, as salt is available everywhere. There is no need for chemicals, which are difficult to procure in rural areas,” explains Abhijeet.

From chemical to biological treatment of water, Rite Water Solutions has now established over 5,200 community water purification plants across the country.

Abhijeet shares that they have signed contracts to work in 17,500 villages under the Jal Jeevan Mission in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Bihar, West Bengal, and Karnataka.

Besides tackling fluoride, they also work on arsenic, nitrate, and iron removal. They offer decentralised water purification systems, solar-powered water treatment units, and mobile water ATMs.

Their initiatives include IoT (Internet Of Things) driven water management systems integrating this technology into rural water supply schemes.

Abhijeet, 41, claims that the company is purifying over 10 million litres of water every day.

“During our early days, we completed a project in Jharkhand, delivering clean water to people’s homes for the first time. I'll never forget the joy on their faces when they finally had water in their houses. That moment made me realise the profound impact of simple solutions,” he says.