New Delhi (Sputnik) — Termed a future jeep by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the machine can purify up to 20,000 liters of sea water a day and 80,000 liters of brackish or muddy or contaminated river water in a day. The purified water will be equivalent to WHO level.
PM @narendramodi and @IsraeliPM @netanyahu attend a demonstration of a mobile seawater desalination unit. pic.twitter.com/Az2luALImb
— PMO India (@PMOIndia) July 6, 2017
"Vehicle which I saw today will be very useful particularly in natural disasters like floods, earthquakes, military use in difficult terrain and rural areas to provide drinkable water. This is a unique type of vehicle which can provide drinking water through a very simple way of processing," Narendra Modi said after the demo.
The Gal-Mobile water purification vehicle is a lightweight automatic purifier which can connect to any possible water source such as rivers, lakes, oceans, brackish water, wells, highly turbidity water source and automatically produce drinking water at WHO standards. It can run at a speed of 55 mph and is an all-weather resistance vehicle. It has an integrated water storage tank of 1,000 liters capacity and increases up to 10,000 liters.
This will be very useful in a natural calamity-prone country like India. According to the World Bank and non-governmental organization Water Aid, around 37.7 million Indians are affected by waterborne diseases annually; 1.5 million children are estimated to die of diarrhea alone and 73 million working days are lost due to waterborne diseases each year.
India may face a gap of 754 billion cubic meters in demand-supply of water by 2030; approximately 50 billion cubic meters in the domestic sector which demands an investment of about $291 billion by 2030, which is higher than New Delhi's annual budget to meet the demand of water.
