HIX-Nano for Odisha — Drinkwell Briefing

The problem · Odisha today

Coverage is advancing. Keeping the water safe is the unfinished mile.

Odisha has built at remarkable pace — 27 Mega PWS projects, 3,000+ single‑village schemes, and a Rural Drinking Water O&M Policy (2026) that puts sustainability at the centre. The remaining challenge is chemistry: iron and fluoride in groundwater‑fed habitations, and treatment that fails without ongoing media care.

Iron — IMIS quality-affected habitations

Fluoride — district records & field study

Arsenic — CGWB shallow-aquifer flag

Bubble size = affected habitations on record. Iron: JJM/IMIS ledger hotspot districts. Fluoride: Nuapada district records (903 habitations) and the Mayurbhanj field study (2.4–8.2 mg/L, Bangriposi block). Arsenic: CGWB shallow-aquifer records, coastal districts. Click a hotspot bubble to expand the district. Iron districts show named habitations from the JJM WQMIS register (flagged 2019–20 · solid = not covered, faded = since covered · positions name‑matched to PMGSY GeoSadak habitation points, habitation‑approximate). Nuapada's 903 from district records remains schematic — only 12 habitations sit on the official fluoride register, the recognition gap CSIR‑NEERI documented.

The official ledger — 979 quality‑affected habitations

Iron947

Fluoride18

Salinity9

Nitrate5

Hotspots: Koraput 334 · Malkangiri 212 · Kandhamal 132 · Rayagada 57 — largely tribal, JJM‑2.0 priority districts. CGWB additionally records localised fluoride >1.5 mg/L in 26 districts and shallow‑aquifer arsenic in 5 coastal districts.
Source: Govt. of Odisha affidavit to NGT (OA 728/2023), IMIS Format C17‑A, June 2024.

The ground reality runs deeper

Nuapada: district records count 903 fluoride‑affected habitations and ~1,752 unusable tube wells — served today by a mix of mega‑PWS and ~1,100 small defluoridation units.
Mayurbhanj (Nov 2025 field study): 2.4–8.2 mg/L fluoride in Bangriposi block — including 8.2 mg/L at a primary school — in habitations officially recorded as covered.
Iron: state data reports ~1,972 villages with high‑iron groundwater beyond the IMIS list.

Why units fail — the O&M diagnosis

No defluoridation technology consistently worked under real field conditions… improper regeneration, absence of trained operators, and no post‑installation support.

CSIR‑NEERI field study of handpump defluoridation units, Nuapada district — peer‑reviewed, September 2025

The state's own O&M Policy 2026 reaches the same conclusion — the gap is not intent or budget, but a delivery model where treatment survives beyond installation.

Why Odisha's chemistry favours ion exchange

Western‑belt groundwater is near‑neutral (block means pH 6.9–7.6) — squarely inside HIX‑Nano's optimal window.
Average TDS is just ~319 mg/L — precisely where RO wastes the most water for the least benefit (50–60% reject), a concern the NGT has flagged nationally for low‑TDS sources.
HIX‑Nano treats iron, fluoride and arsenic — matching all three of Odisha's contaminant profiles.

Chemistry: peer‑reviewed statewide phreatic aquifer study (Geoscience Frontiers, 2021) and Nuapada block‑level survey (Applied Water Science, 2023).

The product · The media

A bead the size of a grain of sand. Engineered at the nanometre.

Each bead is a durable polymer sphere impregnated with iron/zirconium oxide nanoparticles — an enormous internal surface that binds the target contaminant on contact, and releases it on command during regeneration. Invented in the USA; manufactured by Drinkwell in Kolkata. One media per contaminant — and for Odisha, iron and fluoride lead the lineup.

947 of Odisha's 979 affected habitations

HIX™ 100+

Iron removal media

Removes iron — Fe²⁺ and Fe³⁺ — up to 25 ppm
95–99% water recovery; low wastage by design
Pump or gravity‑fed, operating range 15–75 psia
No iron leaching from the media bed during filtration, backwash or rinse

Nuapada's 903 fluoride habitations

HIX‑Nano™ 200+

Fluoride removal media

Removes fluoride up to 10 ppm with rapid adsorption kinetics
Good results beyond 100 regeneration cycles
Low pressure drop; pump or gravity‑fed, 15–75 psia
The chemistry evaluated by CSIR‑IMMT Bhubaneswar on Odisha groundwater

Shallow aquifers, 5 coastal districts

HIX‑Nano™ 100+

Arsenic & uranium removal media

Removes arsenic — As(III) and As(V) — up to 1200 ppb, plus uranium
Proprietary chemistry — CSIR approved in India
Regenerable and reusable with low energy consumption
No arsenic leaching during filtration, backwash or rinse

One platform, one regeneration model — the family extends to HIX‑Nano™ 300 (hardness), 400 (nitrate) and 500 (ammonia).

Active sites

Fe/Zr oxide nanoparticles

Dispersed through every bead — selective for As, F and Fe even amid competing ions.

Provenance

Invented in the USA

Proprietary Fe/Zr HAIX platform listed in the Ministry of Jal Shakti's Mashelkar Committee compendium; manufactured in‑house in Kolkata.

Service life

5–10 years per charge

Regenerated on site every 6–12 months and reused — no replacement cycle, no media landfill.

Plant capacity

0.25–500 m³/hr

From hand‑pump retrofits to piped‑scheme treatment stages — same media, same regeneration.

The solution · Deployments

430+ systems across eastern India. Running for years, not months.

From hand‑pump‑scale units to piped‑scheme treatment, operated under government, CSR and entrepreneur models across eastern India. Our oldest kiosks have run continuously since 2017.

433

systems across six Indian states

83,000 LPH

largest single plant — Jhitkipota, for WB PHED

6

Indian states, Assam to Madhya Pradesh

2017

earliest systems still in service

Aerial view of the Dakshin Jhitkipota piped water treatment plant: pressure sand, iron-removal and arsenic-removal vessels beside the chemical and pump-blower rooms — **Dakshin Jhitkipota, Krishnagar‑I block, Nadia district, West Bengal.** An 83,000‑litre‑per‑hour arsenic and iron removal plant Drinkwell built for WB PHED under Jal Jeevan Mission, delivering roughly 200,000 litres a day since November 2025. Pressure sand, iron‑removal and arsenic‑removal stages feeding an overhead tank and distribution main — exactly the treatment train RWSS knows best, and exactly where HIX‑Nano slots in.

The Jeevan Jal fluoride removal kiosk in Dhar district, Madhya Pradesh, with its doors open and operators inside — **Jeevan Jal kiosk, Patadi, Dhar district, Madhya Pradesh.** The fluoride‑removal plant from our case study — CHAI / Tata Trusts‑funded, entrepreneur‑run since 2018; fluoride 3.92 → 0.47 mg/L.

A girl fills a cup from a Drinkwell two-chamber tabletop filter at her home — **Household filter in daily use.** The same HIX media at tabletop scale, for habitations a piped scheme hasn't yet reached.

Where our systems run

Assam222

West Bengal183

Madhya Pradesh12

Bihar9

Uttar Pradesh5

Tripura2

Repeat orders tell the story: Assam grew from a pilot to 175+ systems; Madhya Pradesh from a pilot to 13.

Field performance, measured

Kothora, Nalbari, Assam (Tata Trusts, est. 2017): arsenic 240 ppb → 1 ppb, iron 2.10 → 0.24 mg/L — 1,000 LPH kiosk, in continuous service for 9 years.
Patadi, Dhar, Madhya Pradesh (CHAI / Tata Trusts, est. 2018): fluoride 3.92 → 0.47 mg/L, entrepreneur‑operated.
Every plant ships with prepaid smart‑card dispensing, an online monitoring dashboard, and a dedicated service team.

Deployed with

Asian Development BankWorld BankUNICEFUSAIDUK aidJICAGIZTata TrustsCoca‑Cola FoundationCHAIUnilever

Validation

Validated by a Government of India lab. In Bhubaneswar. On Odisha groundwater.

One stage. No chemicals in daily operation. Minimal power. Water goes in above IS 10500 limits and comes out safe — and the media that made it safe is renewed in place, not thrown away.

Raw groundwater

As · F · Fe above IS 10500 limits, typical of hand‑pump & borewell sources

HIX‑Nano column

Single‑stage fixed‑bed filtration · no chemicals in daily operation · minimal power

Safe water

Meets IS 10500:2012 — As ≤ 0.01 mg/L, F ≤ 1.0 mg/L

Distribution

Hand‑pump retrofit, community kiosk, or piped‑scheme treatment stage

Media is regenerated on site every 6–12 months and reused for 5–10 years — no replacement cycle, no media landfill.

~90%

water recovery
(RO: 40–50%)

5–10 yr

media life via regeneration

1

stage — operable by trained local staff

6×

lower energy than RO — suits outage‑prone sites

Tested in Odisha

CSIR‑IMMT, Bhubaneswar — independent performance evaluation

Laboratory‑scale continuous trials (Report No. 1129/E&S/SSP‑347, June 2019): arsenic 69–296 ppb → 1–17 ppb over 32 days without regeneration; fluoride 4.72–9.9 → 0.02–0.04 mg/L. On a real Odisha dug‑well sample (Balsinghpur): fluoride 3.75 → 0.42–0.56 mg/L. Full report available to RWSS on request.

Dr. R.A. Mashelkar Committee, Ministry of Jal Shakti

The HIX media platform is listed on the Department of Drinking Water & Sanitation's official compendium of Technologies Recommended by the Dr. Mashelkar Committee — entry: “HAIX: Hybrid Anion Exchange Media based on Fe/Zr nano particles for removal of Arsenic & Fluoride” (chemistry invented in the USA).

State task‑force validations

Validated by the West Bengal Arsenic Task Force (2013) and Fluoride Task Force (2017); independent evaluations by IISc Bangalore and IIT Roorkee.

Global recognition

2022 U.S. Secretary of State's Award for Corporate Excellence (Climate Resilience), presented by Secretary Blinken · 2026 Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur of the Year, World Economic Forum, Davos.

Lifetime cost

Designed to still be running — and still be affordable — in year ten.

Capex is only the entry fee. The cost that decides whether a plant survives is the recurring one: media, energy, and skilled attention. HIX‑Nano is engineered to minimise all three.

HIX‑Nano ion exchange

Water recovery

~90%

Media cycle

Regenerate & reuse, 5–10 yr

Energy

~6× lower than RO

Operation

Single stage, local operator

Conventional RO membrane

Water recovery

40–50%

Media cycle

Membrane replacement ~yearly

Energy

High‑pressure pumping

Operation

Multi‑stage, skilled service

74%

lower lifetime cost than conventional RO at 1,000 LPH*

½

the raw water drawn per safe litre — matters where sources deplete

0

media landfill — spent regenerant safely stabilised, resin reused

The lesson from neighbouring states

In West Bengal, media change‑out tenders for conventional adsorption arsenic plants now run at a cost comparable to the original plant — every few years, forever. A regenerable media flips that recurring liability into a modest service contract: scheduled regeneration visits, IoT‑monitored uptime, and performance‑linked payment terms. That is the O&M model Odisha's 2026 policy calls for, built into the technology itself.

*1,000‑LPH lifecycle comparison covering capex, energy, media and service; detailed workings shared gladly during the technical presentation.

The funding pathway

The budget already exists.

Safe‑water treatment in mining districts need not compete with JJM or BASUDHA allocations. District Mineral Foundation funds — collected, held at district level, and explicitly earmarked for drinking water — can fund it today.

₹34,052 crore

collected by Odisha's 11 DMF trusts — the largest DMF corpus in India (Oct 2025)

Utilised ~55%Unspent ~₹15,300 Cr

Why DMF fits

The Hon'ble Chief Minister's DMF review (Dec 2025) directed faster utilisation — naming clean drinking water among the priority areas.
PMKKKY 2024 guidelines: ≥70% of DMF funds must go to high‑priority sectors — and item (a) on that list is drinking water, including “centralized purification systems, water treatment plants.”
Sanctioning is district‑level: the Collector chairs both DMF bodies, so projects move at district speed.

Precedents already set: Sundargarh's ₹787 Cr rural piped‑water project (OMBADC + DMF, 2021) · Keonjhar's DMF/OMBADC Drink‑from‑Tap mega schemes · Ramgarh, Jharkhand committed 77% of its DMF corpus to water, including treatment.

Where the money meets the water problem

District	DMF corpus	Groundwater issue
Keonjhar	₹13,155 Cr	Iron belt (mining tracts) + localised fluoride
Sundargarh	₹4,800 Cr+	CGWB‑listed fluoride district
Angul	DMF‑rich	Documented fluoride hotspot
Jajpur	₹575 Cr+	Fluoride + iron in mining belts
Koraput	DMF‑rich	334 iron‑affected habitations — state's largest

Our proposal — three steps, each with a clear decision point

Technical presentation to RWSS

Chemistry, removal performance, and the CSIR‑IMMT Bhubaneswar evaluation — with detailed cost workings, at your convenience.

Site visit to operating plants

See 2017‑vintage systems running today in Assam and West Bengal; speak directly with the PHED engineers and operators who run them.

DMF‑funded pilot in 1–2 districts

Community treatment units and hand‑pump retrofits in, e.g., Keonjhar, Sundargarh or Nuapada — 5‑year performance‑linked O&M, scheduled media regeneration, IoT uptime monitoring, independent testing by CSIR‑IMMT Bhubaneswar.

Funded by the district. Validated by Odisha's own laboratory. Sustained by design.