Vodafone M&G conserves rain water for parched farmers

With the state battling serious water crisis causing financial and emotional distress to a lot of farmers, Vodafone India, one of India’s leading telecom subscribers has come up with a unique solution taking a small step towards water conservation to aid the parched farmers of Wadebolai Village (Bolai Mata Temple).

Vodafone as a brand has always been active in Out of Home Advertising (OOH), and has been the one to set benchmarks in terms of creating landmark Out of Home (OOH) media properties, creating visibility and stature through the medium.  Making the most of this medium, Vodafone in Maharashtra & Goa circle have created a simple yet effective mechanism on the billboards with help of Kinetic India, the global leader in connecting and activating audiences on the move. Clubbing the age old concept of Rain Water Harvesting with their billboards, Vodafone M&G have created “Rain Water Conservation Billboards”.

Rain water is harvested using the billboards, by creating a U-curved aluminum sheet as a rain water collection funnel on top of the billboards. This funnel is then channeled through a tube to a big tank installed at the bottom of each hoarding, which stores the collected rain water.  In order to keep a check on the water level in the tank, each tank has been installed with a unique Vodafone sim card based water sensor technology. Once the tanks are full, an SMS is automatically sent out to the administration.  The water collected in the tanks are then transferred to water tankers and taken to the farmers.

5 such innovative rain water harvesting billboards have been installed in Pune at the New Airport Road. With 5 billboards, there are 5 tanks attached each with a capacity of 2000 liters. The collected water is donated then to Wadebolai Village (Bolai Mata Temple). About 20,000 litres of water have been donated till date owing to the innovative activity which began on July 21st, 2016.

Speaking about this innovation, Ashish Chandra, Business Head, Maharashtra and Goa, Vodafone India, said “The state of Maharashtra has been dealing with water shortage since a few years now. In the current scenario, every single drop of water is extremely precious. Rainwater, if harvested properly can meet a large part of our requirements. By means of this initiative, we aim to do our bit in conserving this precious resource and help the farmers in the areas facing water crisis.”

Adding to above, Sommnath Sengupta, National Creative Director, Kinetic India said, “At kinetic we always look forward to create new technologies and product design. Vodafone is one of the most innovative brand and always look forward to help people with their services, so they instantly came forward to help the poor farmers and the drought effected areas with our Rainwater harvesting idea.... Just imagine!  Even if half of the billboards converts themselves into Vodafone's Rainwater Harvesting service, how much we can help those drought effected farmers and regions."

Vodafone India as an organization believes that environmental sustainability is critical for future survival and growth. It proactively works towards energy conservation and ensures its environmental initiatives preserve and enrich the planet.