Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani and Sustainable Innovations (www.si-usa.org), USA were awarded a grant of Rs. 60, 00, 000 by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, to demonstrate Aakash Ganga’s social enterprise model along with its holistic sustainability and innovations. AG is a domestic rainwater harvesting system that alleviates the perennial scarcity of drinking water in the rural villages. Aakash Ganga’s social enterprise model couples "social business” of Noble Laureate Muhammad Yunus and cultural sustainability of Gandhi. It evolved over several years through incubation and pilot in six villages which are in close proximity to BITS Pilani campus.

Aakash Ganga (AG) channels rooftop rainwater from houses, through gutters and pipes, to a network of multi-tier underground reservoirs. Part of the harvested rooftop rainwater is stored in the House Tank or Griha Tanka, reservoir attached to a house, for the exclusive use of the home owner. The rest flows to the community tank or gram tanka. People who live under thatched roofs or who cannot afford to have their own reservoirs use water from the shared reservoir. Typically, the griha tanka (household tank) stores enough water to meet the drinking water needs of the family for a year. The large shared reservoir is of 400,000 litres or more in capacity. The actual size depends on several factors including village population, average roof area, and average annual rainfall.

Aakash Ganga has expanded the concept of sustainability beyond economic sustainability to encompass cultural, societal, operational, institutional, technological, ecological, and replication sustainability. This holistic concept of sustainability has driven a bundle of innovations. AG harvests innovations in engineering, social capital, and entrepreneurship to build self-sustainable social enterprise. These enterprises are sustainable in capacity (capturing enough rainwater for 12-month supply), technology (using satellite imagery to design the scheme; and implementing IT to monitor water quality and utilization), economics (adapting utility industry model to minimize capital cost per litre of harvested rainwater), social enterprise (local social entrepreneurs deploy and maintain the AG); social capital (monetizing familial bonds, customs, and social norms); and social harmony (quietly bringing segregated communities together, Gandhian style).

So far, AG has already won the World Bank’s Development Marketplace award of $200,000 for its social innovation and sustainability. Dr. Agrawal has won the $100,000 Lemelson – MIT award, received the Energy Globe World Award, was named the Purpose Prize Fellow for AG’s social innovations and invited by World Economic Forum to share the social enterprise model. He serves on the Advisory Board of Smithsonian Institute’s Lemelson Center. The Ministry of Rural Development and United Nations Development Program (UNDP) gave a planning grant to scale up AG in the Nagaur district. AG's technology partners in this effort are Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, and Trinity College, Ireland.

Under the DST grant, BITS has set up an innovation hub led by Senior Prof. Rajiv Gupta and he is coordinating the project since its inception.