How every drop counts

Setting up solar-powered water solutions in villages is just one of the many ways Aditya Birla Group enriches the lives of its communities

Severe water shortage was an issue that the villagers of Chikdandi and Kol Basti in Uttar Pradesh's Sonbhadra district had lived with for years. The little water they could access through the village well was often not safe for drinking. Seeing their plight, the team at Dalla Cement Works (DCW), an integrated manufacturing unit of UltraTech Cement located nearby, stepped up to resolve the problem.

As part of community outreach, the DCW team studied the water situation in depth. They felt that the best solution was a solar-powered water supply system that would continue to work even when grid power was not available. The team immediately started work on the project.

Today, the villages have an end-to-end water system, with solar panels, a submersible pump, an overhead water tank that stores 2,000 litres, an underground water pipeline, and a platform with two water taps. Battery panels store power and keep water flowing even on days with low sunlight.

The solar-powered water system offers the villages more than just water — it is a long-term, sustainable solution, with low operation and maintenance costs, that runs on clean energy. This empathic attitude of the Dalla team has given 550 families in the village easy access to safe drinking water.