In a country where shortage of drinking water is a significant crisis, very few entrepreneurs have decided to address the situation. Sarvajal is one such organization which is working towards solving India's water crisis. Since it was established in 2008, Sarvajal has addressed the needs for clean drinking water especially in rural areas.

Sarvajal was started in 2007 as an experiment on non Profit basis, but its growing popularity and mounting needs of people helped reform the company to its present stature. Sarvajal set up water ATMs across all northwestern states of India, and established filtration plants which worked on the concept of reverse Osmosis.

Anand Shah, Founder & CEO of Sarvajal, a graduate in evolutionary biology from Harvard University was born and raised in Texas. He facilitated the launch of media and technology charter high school in U.S., before moving to India. He founded several startups to help the Indian community including Indicrops and Teach for India but later decided that he has to work on something that is more vital and that demands more attention.

"We found that the single greatest intervention you could make was actually clean water, and nothing else," beams Shah. He revolutionized the drinking water business in India which was traditionally maintained by suppliers of packaged drinking water bottles. Although there were few charitable institutions which built plants to supply clean water, the model was futile due to lack of maintenance.

Sarvajal had a family pay for the plant and had it set up in a village of 10,000 people and started selling water to the community. They also took steps to ensure that the machinery kept working without any pause. By integrating modern technologies, they can monitor and diagnose problems through mobile devices, before they occur. The company also ensured that every machine is transparent so as to understand the usage and be more economical. Today Sarvajal boast of having 254 franchises and claims to provide 84,854 clean drinking water.

Anand Shah is also serving as the CEO of Primal foundations and is concurrently serving as a consultant on academic strategy for the upcoming Vedanta University.