Complete Rainwater Harvesting Solutions from D&D EcoTech

Friday July 06, 2012 , 5 min Read

Water has been appropriately termed as “white gold”. It is a commodity whose supplies are going to dwindle in the coming years as the demand for fresh water supplies increases. To meet the growing demand for water rainwater harvesting is one of the best solutions, since rainwater is a free and inexpensive source to tap. In India there are very few rainwater harvesting models available and that too only in select cities as they are made by local companies who do not have a national network. Also, no rainwater harvesting system accessories such as leaf separators, dirt segregators etc. are available in India. To tap this gap and the dying need of efficient products D&D Ecotech, is in the process of designing RWH filters & accessories.

D&D Ecotech was founded by **Suresh** & **Sunil**, two friends who met while working in an event agency. Today they have a team of 4 executives who assist them in the marketing & operations part of the business. Suresh takes care of the marketing part, meeting clients, making presentations, proposals and Sunil manages the operations part i.e. RWH system installations, arranging materials, sourcing and coordinating with vendors etc.

“Our background in events is a plus since being in events made us very resourceful and able to handle any last minute crisis or needs something we find useful in the RWH business. Also thanks to his background in sourcing & negotiating with event vendors Sunil is able to get the best vendors and rates for our labor & material requirements,” says Suresh.

Initially they had planned to generate leads and sublet the work to other agencies. But the pricing by other agencies was too high making projects unviable for clients. “It became a frustrating situation, wherein we had clients who wanted to implement rainwater harvesting but we did not know how to help them. It was so bad that we almost gave up and decided to shut shop. Then one day while surfing the web I came to know about a workshop on rainwater harvesting being organized by CSE, Delhi. Immediately I called them and asked if I could join in. Luckily a seat was available so I left for Delhi the very next day. This workshop helped us understand the fundamentals of rainwater harvesting and after that there was no looking back,” says Sunil.

Today after 3 years of struggle they have no regrets about the decision and feel things are only going to get better with time. The going can only get better, as there is an increasing awareness about rainwater harvesting. Today most of the cities have made it compulsory while the Central & State governments are also launching schemes to promote rainwater harvesting. Corporates are even willing to sponsor rainwater harvesting structures as part of their CSR activities, which opens up another business line for D&D Ecotech.

Earlier they used to focus on housing societies but noticed that it was time consuming, so they shifted their focus to corporates and industries and the business started picking up. This year they are doing more projects as compared to last year. They are already processing enquiries from companies like Unilever, Thermax, Bisleri etc.The overall costs depend on the extent of plumbing required. For storage projects filters need to be used which cost around Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 20,000 depending on the roof top area. For recharging into the groundwater they have their indigenously designed recharge systems i.e. Jal Rakshak which cost Rs. 1,50,000/- onwards. Depending on the water holding capacity required.

On the marketing front, till date, they have relied only on Google Adwords. A monthly expenditure of Rs. 1,500/- to Rs. 2,000/- only has helped them generate business of almost Rs. 70 lakhs in the last 3 years. “This year we also gave a brand name to our Recharge Systems i.e. Jal Rakshak to help differentiate it from typical recharge systems which just consisted of a brick n mortar chamber with sand and pebbles as filter media. Branding the recharge system as Jal Rakshak has helped us generate more interest in the same,” says Suresh, accentuating upon the importance of branding one’s products.

Every site is very different and they need to ensure that the structures are well placed in areas with the maximum water collection without disturbing the aesthetics of the building and campus. Suresh also clarified on the construction part that, **there is no need to modify the existing structure as only plumbing needs to be done around the building.**

Bangalore & Delhi are one of the biggest markets for rainwater harvesting, Bangalore because of its strict compliance laws and Delhi because the city offers a subsidy of Rs. 1 lakh to societies that implement rainwater harvesting. Guwahati & Hyderabad are also probable regions that D&D Ecotech would like to explore as they have been getting a lot of queries for franchisees from these regions.

To fund the development, production & marketing of its product range D&D Ecotech is looking for angel investors and VC's to invest in D&D Ecotech.

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