Mr. Gaurav Kapse will present his APS as per the detail below:

Date: 28 Feb 2023

Time: 1130 – 1300 hrs.

Venue:  CISCO TP Room, Ground Floor, IITB Monash Research Academy

Title: What does safe, affordable drinking water mean?

Guide: Prof. Pankaj Sekhsaria (IIT Bombay), Prof. Murali Sastry (Monash University)

RPC Members: Prof. Anand B. Rao (IIT Bombay), Prof. Mainak Majumder (Monash University)

Abstract:

This report briefly describes the work carried out in the first year of the Ph.D. along with the mandatory coursework. With the central research question “what does safe, affordable drinking water mean?” the literature review was conducted to find the research gaps. The direction of research is in understanding various realities of drinking water quality and the reasons behind the increased use of household water purification technologies in India and Australia. Using the research gaps, the research questions have been formulated. The need for holistic evaluation and rating framework for water purifiers also comes out as a major need from the literature.     A study on diarrhoea occurrence and water quality has been conducted to understand interlinkage, gaps, and probable tools. The study points towards the microbial contamination issues in areas with piped or improved water supplies which can be used to justify the reason behind the high usage of water purifiers in urban areas. The study on the RO filter’s journey in India and the NGT case on the RO ban helped in understating the involvement of powerful stakeholders with some specific interest in diluting the regulation and policies. The preliminary field insights indicate that the emergence of water filters or RO in particular cannot be understood just in isolation with the technical advantage lens and requires a larger, wider angle to look into the possible interaction of various aspects. The water quality and TDS-related knowledge gap, popularity of assembled filters, quality perspectives, and consumer requirements require more extensive empirical data to come up with some reasoning behind the present situation.

Event Date: 
Tuesday, February 28, 2023 - 11:30 to 13:00