When Vodafone installed five unique rainwater harvesting billboards at New Airport Road, Pune

The initiative that kick-started on July 21, 2016, has already donated 20,000 litres of water to aid farmers of Wadebolai village in Pune.

In the event of a severe water crisis in Maharashtra, Pune's Wadebolai village has turned totally arid. With the aim to solve the village's water shortage problem, leading telecom subscriber Vodafone India, came up with a unique out-of-home (OOH) initiative - rain water conservation billboards.

The Maharashtra and Goa circle of Vodafone, in partnership with Kinetic India, an out-of-home advertising agency, married the concepts of rain water harvesting with its idea of billboards to harvest rain water since July 21. This is being done by using five innovative billboards by means of a U-curved aluminum sheet as a rain water collection funnel on top of the billboards.

Somnath Sengupta, national creative director, Kinetic India, says, "At Kinetic, we always look forward to create new technologies and product design. Vodafone is one of the most innovative brands and always looks forward to help people with its services. It came forward to help farmers and the drought-affected areas to execute our idea of rain water harvesting. Even if half the number of billboards convert into Vodafone's rainwater harvesting service, we can help the farmers and several drought-affected areas in the region."

As part of the activity, the funnel is being channelled 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 is then transferred to water tankers and taken to the farmers.

Five such innovative rain water harvesting billboards have been installed for this purpose at New Airport Road in Pune, along with five tanks attached to it. The tanks have a capacity of 2,000 litres, and have so far donated 20,000 litres of water to Wadebolai village.

Ashish Chandra, business head, Maharashtra and Goa, Vodafone India, says, "The state of Maharashtra has been dealing with water shortage since several 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 farmers in the areas facing a water crisis."

Vodafone India, a 100 per cent fully-owned subsidiary of the Vodafone Group Plc., commenced its operations across the country in 2007. Vodafone Business Services serves the needs of enterprises and the Government, by providing total telecommunications (Voice and Data) solutions across mobility and wireline platforms. It also owns the mobile wallet M-Pesa, a unique and innovative money transfer service that fosters financial inclusion.