My overarching project for the next six months is going to be the creation of a franchise operations manual. One of our major operational difficulties arises out of the rural nature of our entrepreneurs that run Sarvajal franchises. We want to promote rural employment and keep processes community-based. However, many franchisees could use help in running their business efficiently and effectively.
I’m going to be writing a manual that is very simple yet clear in language that will teach them everything that they need to start and run a Sarvajal franchise. This includes teaching the basics of accounting (revenue, cost, income), the basics of marketing their franchise and attracting customers, how to operate the reverse osmosis purifier, how to offer and price home delivery, and much more. I’ll have to visit sites and speak to personnel across Gujarat and Rajasthan in order to create an effective manual.
After my first week here, I can already say that I’m very pleasantly surprised at how fast we’re moving along and the impact we’ve already had on the villages that have our franchises operating. I had the opportunity to go to Vasai last week and talk to both the franchise owners and some of the villagers who were buying our water.
Vasai is a village that is located very close to Mount Idar, about two and a half hours drive from Ahmedabad. Because of the mineral deposits of the mountain, the ground water there has an extremely level of fluoride. For this reason, most of the elderly residents of Vasai suffered from varying degrees of skeletal fluorosis, a disease that is endemic in India and is caused by excessive fluoride in drinking water. It manifests itself as joint pains and arthritis-like symptoms, and in some cases can proceed to become crippling.
The Vasai site seems to be operating very well. I asked an elderly lady who had come to buy 20 liters of water whether she’d noticed any differences since she began using Sarvajal purified water for drinking. She had been using purchasing water from us for the last 2 months. She said that the joint pains that were slowly becoming worse for the past 10 or so years had started to lessen a few weeks after she began drinking our water. Witnessing firsthand the positive impact that we’re having on that community was quite moving to say the least.
I did notice something that was a little worrisome however. While the knowledge that clean drinking water is essential to health appears to be spreading through rural India, it doesn’t extend to understanding the importance of clean cooking water. Impure cooking water is often mistakenly used in place of clean water. While the process of cooking kills microbes, it doesn’t remove chemical contaminations. In fact, it increases their concentration by causing water to vaporize. Problems like skeletal fluorosis will keep continuing for as long as impure water is used for cooking. We will try to create more awareness for this issue as we move along.

My overarching project for the next six months is going to be the creation of a franchise operations manual. One of our major operational difficulties arises out of the rural nature of our entrepreneurs that run Sarvajal franchises. We want to promote rural employment and keep processes community-based. However, many franchisees could use help in running their business efficiently and effectively.

I’m going to be writing a manual that is very simple yet clear in language that will teach them everything that they need to start and run a Sarvajal franchise. This includes teaching the basics of accounting (revenue, cost, income), the basics of marketing their franchise and attracting customers, how to operate the reverse osmosis purifier, how to offer and price home delivery, and much more. I’ll have to visit sites and speak to personnel across Gujarat and Rajasthan in order to create an effective manual.

After my first week here, I can already say that I’m very pleasantly surprised at how fast we’re moving along and the impact we’ve already had on the villages that have our franchises operating. I had the opportunity to go to Vasai last week and talk to both the franchise owners and some of the villagers who were buying our water.

Vasai is a village that is located very close to Mount Idar, about two and a half hours drive from Ahmedabad. Because of the mineral deposits of the mountain, the ground water there has an extremely level of fluoride. For this reason, most of the elderly residents of Vasai suffered from varying degrees of skeletal fluorosis, a disease that is endemic in India and is caused by excessive fluoride in drinking water. It manifests itself as joint pains and arthritis-like symptoms, and in some cases can proceed to become crippling.

The Vasai site seems to be operating very well. I asked an elderly lady who had come to buy 20 liters of water whether she’d noticed any differences since she began using Sarvajal purified water for drinking. She had been using purchasing water from us for the last 2 months. She said that the joint pains that were slowly becoming worse for the past 10 or so years had started to lessen a few weeks after she began drinking our water. Witnessing firsthand the positive impact that we’re having on that community was quite moving to say the least.

I did notice something that was a little worrisome however. While the knowledge that clean drinking water is essential to health appears to be spreading through rural India, it doesn’t extend to understanding the importance of clean cooking water. Impure cooking water is often mistakenly used in place of clean water. While the process of cooking kills microbes, it doesn’t remove chemical contaminations. In fact, it increases their concentration by causing water to vaporize. Problems like skeletal fluorosis will keep continuing for as long as impure water is used for cooking. We will try to create more awareness for this issue as we move along.