Chennai start-ups foray into app-based water supply – The Hindu

GoWatr and Tankme, start-ups based in Chennai, are facilitating online booking of water tankers in and around the city. While GoWatr has just completed one year, Tankme is a new entrant.

“The idea behind Tankme was very simple – to marry technology with Chennai’s biggest challenge. We decided to ‘Uber-ise’ this process, so that customers can easily book their tankers through our app. While the larger focus is on expanding our services, our immediate focus is to ensure tanker service across the city,” said Arun Ander, CEO and founder of Tankme.

Kaushik Mohan and Fahad Javeed, Co-founders of Tankme, said an efficient water booking system will help in drastic reduction in operator cost and in turn reduce the cost.

In traditional water delivery systems, 70% of the price a customer pays goes to meet the transportation cost alone, they said. The water delivery space has been crowded with private and government participation.

Monitoring water levels

GoWatr acts as an aggregator for water tanker supply to consumers and installs IoT and flow meter devices that helps monitor the storage level of water (at the customer’s place) remotely.

“When the tank is about to go empty, we will get an alert and inform the consumers immediately,” Shreeknt Jha, co-founder of GoWatr, said. “Our technology finds the closest borewell to customer location, thereby reducing distance,” he added.

Good potential

Mr. Jha said that, as of 2019, nearly 50 to 60% of the water supplied in Chennai and its suburbs was through private water tankers. About 20,000 tanker loads of water were supplied every day through 4,500 private tanker lorries.

Data provided by Tankme shows that there are 18 lakh plus deliveries (water tanks) that happen in Chennai per annum. According to them, this particular market was valued at ₹450 crore per annum.

GoWatr will be foraying into other parts of India. And Tankme wants to establish its footprint across Chennai by April. Their clientele includes apartments, commercial buildings, malls, IT parks, educational institutions, restaurants and construction industry.