The RO purifier by these two IIT BHU engineers ensures that water wastage is minimised

Food, water and air — we know that life is impossible without these three elements. We’ve also been learning from a very young age that the freshwater resources on Earth are scarce and hence, it is high time to look for alternate sources. Over the years, RO (Reverse Osmosis) based purifiers have been the answer to water scarcity. (Sounds like an ad, doesn't it?) Well, the fact is that in most of the RO purifiers, the water wastage is 70 per cent! You just get 30 per cent of the input as pure drinking water. How about we reverse these numbers to get an output of 70 per cent and the waste reduced to 30 per cent? Sounds ideal I think. That’s exactly what Naveen Kumar and Rohit Mittal did.

These two engineers from IIT BHU founded a start-up, Aquvio three years ago in 2014 and they wanted to do something that would create a difference in the society. Realising that water crises is prevalent in almost every nook and corner of the country, the duo thought of an RO water purifier that wouldn't produce too much waste. A year later, there they were, ready with their very first purifier. “We developed our first purifier in July 2015. We were adamant of producing less waste. This purifier gives you around 800 litres of water per day,” explains Naveen. 

Naveen and Rohit are mentored by Dr S N Upadhyay, ex Director IIT BHU and Dr Dharmendra Kumar Gupta, a senior scientist in Hanover

A product that was created with the help of the MCIIE (Malaviya Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship) incubator in IIT BHU, the duo have expanded the company to four cities now — Benaras, Lucknow, Kanpur and Allahabad. If this progress wasn't enough, a couple of weeks ago, under the Invent start-up incubation programme at IIT Kanpur, Aquvio won a financial assistance of `20 lakh. Elated, Naveen talks about their future plans. “We’re now working on purifiers with a lower capacity. Also, we’re planning to build water coolers into it,” he says.