2022 Seed Grant Award Problem Statements 

Water / Sanitation

Problem #14: Detect Water Depth so that Bore Well Digging Expense do not get Wasted

Country/Region of execution: India
Collaborating Organization: Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA)
Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), founded by Smt. Elaben Bhatt is a member-based organization of 1.6 million poor women workers from Informal Economies across 18 States of India. SEWA also has its presence in neighboring Afghanistan, Bhutan, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Maldives, and Sri Lanka. SEWA’s strategy involves working around achieving twin goals of (a) Full employment - employment that provides work, income, and food security and Social Security and (b) Self-reliance – economical & decision-making.  By organizing these women workers to attain full employment, SEWA helps them become autonomous and economically self-reliant both individually and collectively, including decision-making ability. To achieve its goals, SEWA follows an integrated approach:  (a) Organizing for collective strength,  (b) Capacity building to stand firm in a competitive market,  (c) Capital formation for risk mitigation & fight poverty, and  (d) Social security to enhance well-being & productivity.
Problem Statement Description:  Salt farmers pump out briny groundwater to produce salt using expensive diesel pumps from the borrowed money from lenders at a high rate who bought the salt at artificially low prices. They work long hours in the scorching sun to dig the 2/3 wells, which provides sufficient water for salt production.SEWA started organizing Agariyas in 2001 who were trapped within a vicious circle of poverty due to being unorganized, unbankable, inaccessible to market, and thus, exploited by money lenders and intermediaries. SEWA organized 30,000 women salt pan workers and provided them affordable finance, collective market, capacity building to produce marketable salt, and means to adopt renewable energy sources. Currently, there is no scientific method by which the Agariyas identify the area where the water table is up, and they decide to dig a well. They have to dig the well randomly based on their assumption, which may succeed or fail, putting much effort to dig it. It also involves an investment of money, time, and energy; thus, SEWA feels that there should be equipment that can help the small marginal farmer get the exact water table level, which helps them decide on digging the well. This should be affordable to the small marginal family farmer or their group.  Similarly, the family farmers also dig the groundwater for irrigation purposes, which involves an investment of money, time, and effort. Thus there is a need to innovate equipment to identify the water table level before digging the well by Agariyas or farmers. Lacking access to knowledge and new technologies, Agariyas remain completely dependent on money lenders and are unable to improve their livelihoods.  This will help them to invest their money and efforts in the right direction from their meager income and debt, so the workers do not get trapped in a vicious circle of poverty of high cost of production of inland salt farming with technology innovation in the hands of poor that allows them to know the water level in the land before the digging process.  The problem of determining the water level, by the salt farmers, is directly related to the twin goals of SEWA, i.e. (a) Full employment - employment that provides work, income, and food security and Social Security; and (b) Self-reliance – economical & decision-making. In the absence of solutions, farmers cannot optimize their farm yields and incomes, leading to them being trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty. Given that SEWA is a member-based organization of poor women workers from informal economy, all its initiatives need to be supported by following cost-effectiveness and affordability by the poor women workers from informal economy, technology that is easily adaptable and replicable across the members of SEWA, Environment friendly and preserving the natural resources. The solution needs co-creating support and designing the effective technology keeping in mind the end-users who are poor women members / small and marginal farmers from the informal economy.