>> Rural water delivery in India has expanded rapidly under the Jal Jeevan Mission. But ensuring that water actually reaches homes every day now depends on better data, real-time monitoring, and systems like JalSoochak.

India built the pipes. Now comes the harder part.

Under the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM), more than 1.5 crore rural households have been connected to piped water supply — a number that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. But connection is not the same as service. The pipe in the ground tells you nothing about whether water came out of the tap this morning, in what quantity, or whether the source feeding it is under stress.

That gap — between infrastructure built and service delivered — is where India’s rural water systems are now being tested. And it is a gap that turns, fundamentally, on data.

Why Rural Water Delivery Depends on Better Data

Pump operators and Jal Mitras are the ones who know. They manage supply cycles, monitor pumps, and record water delivery across thousands of villages every day. But in most states, those records live in paper registers. They cannot be verified, compared across districts, or acted on quickly. By the time a problem surfaces through the usual channels, it has often been festering for weeks. Engineers and administrators are left reconciling inconsistent figures instead of responding to the thing that actually went wrong.

Arghyam, a Bengaluru-based philanthropic organisation founded by Rohini Nilekani, has been working on this problem. In partnership with Assam’s Public Health Engineering Department (PHED), it developed JalSoochak (Water indicator) — a platform designed to make frontline water delivery measurable, verifiable, and useful, all the way up the system.

How JalSoochak Is Transforming Rural Water Delivery

“Since the expansion of rural water infrastructure, understanding what is actually happening on the ground at scale has remained difficult. JalSoochak addresses this by enabling frontline workers to capture a simple image as evidence of water supply, while also giving Jal Mitras a verifiable record of their service delivery and attendance,” said Kailash Karthik, Secretary, Public Health Engineering Department, Government of Assam and Mission Director, Jal Jeevan Mission Assam.

The tool itself is straightforward. A frontline worker photographs a meter reading on their mobile phone. The image is processed using AI, the user verifies the reading, and it is logged as a daily record. What used to be a handwritten entry in a register — easily disputed, easily lost — becomes a time-stamped, verifiable data point that engineers, block-level officers, and state administrators can all see and act on.

Accumulated over months, those daily records start to show things that no single entry would. A supply dip that recurs every fortnight. A pump whose readings are quietly declining. A source under pressure before anyone has formally flagged it. Problems get caught earlier, and the people responsible for fixing them have the evidence they need to act.

How Assam Is Digitising Rural Water Delivery

The numbers from Assam are substantial. More than 16,500 pump operators now use JalSoochak, collectively logging over 20 lakh readings. Together, those entries account for more than 37,600 million litres of water supply recorded.

Assam also made something else clear: what works in one state will not simply work everywhere. Each state has its own administrative logic, its own infrastructure, its own ways of capturing supply data. JalSoochak had to be rebuilt to absorb that variation rather than ignore it.

The platform now supports multiple modes of input — bulk flow meters, electric meter readings, pump operation duration, IoT devices, and manual entries. It works in local languages. Rather than running parallel to existing government systems, it is built to plug into them, so the data flows to where decisions are actually made, without creating extra work for anyone in the chain.

“JalSoochak is not just a technology platform. It is an attempt to strengthen service delivery to ensure that the investments made in rural water systems translate into reliable services for people. The journey from Assam to a national scale Digital Public Good has been about one core idea: making data useful for action, where it matters most,” said Deepak Gupta, Director of Digital Infrastructure and Government Partnerships, Arghyam.

JalSoochak is part of a broader effort to build a Digital Public Infrastructure for India’s water sector — a set of open, interoperable systems through which data can move across programmes and institutions, enabling governments to respond to problems where and when they actually occur, rather than when they finally show up in a report.

Crores of households now have a connection. The question that follows is simpler, and harder: is the water actually there? Getting a reliable answer to that question, consistently, across every village and every state, is what the next phase of rural water delivery will depend on.

India green steel production could help the country avoid nearly US$1 trillion in future coking coal imports while strengthening its export competitiveness, according to a new study by the India Energy and Climate Center (IECC) at the University of California, Berkeley.

India could lock itself into nearly US$1 trillion worth of coking coal imports if the country continues expanding steel production through conventional blast furnace technology, according to a new study released by the India Energy and Climate Center (IECC) at the University of California, Berkeley.

The report argues that green steel — produced using green hydrogen instead of imported coking coal — offers India a strategic opportunity to reduce import dependence, shield itself from volatile global commodity markets, and gain an advantage in emerging low-carbon export markets.

India is expected to nearly double its steelmaking capacity over the next decade. According to the study, if much of this expansion follows the conventional route, the country could end up importing around 6 billion tonnes of coking coal over 40 years.

India Green Steel Seen as Strategic Alternative

“India is at a strategic decision point in steel,” said Neelima Jain, Director for Industrial and Trade Policy at IECC.

“If future capacity is built around imported coking coal, the country would hardwire currency and price volatility risks into one of its most important industrial sectors. Green steel offers an alternative path.”

The report says India’s expanding renewable energy capacity gives it a strong base to develop domestic green hydrogen production, which can replace coking coal in ironmaking.

IECC estimates that by 2030, green hydrogen in India could cost around US$3 per kilogram, enabling green steel production at roughly US$562 per tonne. That would place it only about 5–10% above conventional steel from new plants.

India Green Steel Could Reach Cost Parity by 2030

The study says that conventional steel remains vulnerable because it depends heavily on imported coal priced in U.S. dollars, while green steel can rely on long-term domestic renewable power contracts denominated in rupees.

“A static cost comparison misses the central economic point,” said Jose Dominguez, Research Manager at IECC.

“Conventional steel depends on imported coking coal priced in dollars. Green steel can be powered by domestic renewable electricity under long-term rupee contracts. Over time, that makes it far more resilient.”

Taking these factors into account, the report projects that green steel could achieve cost parity with conventional steel — or even become cheaper — around 2030.

India Green Steel: Export Markets Could Shift Towards Cleaner Steel

The report also warns that India’s carbon-intensive steel industry could face growing trade pressures as countries tighten climate-linked import rules.

It points specifically to the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which already covers steel imports. The mechanism imposes carbon-related costs on imported goods based on their emissions intensity.

“India’s green hydrogen costs are among the lowest globally,” said Nikit Abhyankar, Co-Faculty Director of IECC.

“India could be one of the few countries where green steel becomes economically viable within this decade, giving domestic producers an edge in export markets. It could also strengthen competitiveness in downstream manufacturing sectors such as automobiles and machinery.”

Policy Support Seen as Critical

The study says favourable economics alone may not be enough to kickstart large-scale green steel projects. It calls for policy support measures including long-term purchase agreements, reliable access to clean power, emissions verification standards and risk-sharing mechanisms for early investments.

“India’s experience scaling renewable energy and energy storage shows that well-designed public policy can accelerate cost reduction, unlock private investment, and speed early deployment,” said Amol Phadke, Faculty Director of IECC.

“Green steel will require a similarly deliberate market-creation effort.”

The report states India now faces a narrow window to decide how its next wave of steel expansion will be financed and whether the country can position itself competitively in a global industrial economy that is steadily shifting towards low-emission manufacturing.

In a conversation with Education Publica Editor Dipin Damodharan, leading semiconductor researchers Swaroop Ganguly and Udayan Ganguly delve into the science, strategy, and systemic challenges shaping India’s chip ambitions. Both are professors in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. Swaroop Ganguly currently leads SemiX—the institute’s semiconductor initiative that brings together expertise across disciplines to advance India’s capabilities in the sector. Udayan Ganguly previously headed SemiX. India’s semiconductor journey, they argue, is only just beginning. The foundations— policy, infrastructure, talent, and partnerships—are being put in place, but the real challenge lies ahead. This is not an industry that rewards speed alone; it demands persistence, coordination, and long-term commitment. In semiconductors, success is not measured in years, but built over generations. Edited excerpts

India Semiconductor Mission: ‘This Is a 100-Year Bet’

India formally launched the semiconductor mission in 2021. Five years on, where does the country stand today?

Swaroop Ganguly:

The India Semiconductor Mission really began taking shape around 2021, but for a couple of years it was largely policy without visible industry participation. The turning point came around 2023 with the approval of the Micron packaging facility. That was important not just as a project, but as a signal—that global companies were willing to invest in India.

Following that, we saw a series of announcements, particularly in packaging and assembly. Now, packaging is not the highest value-add segment in the semiconductor value chain, but it is still a very important step. It generates employment, it helps build supporting capabilities, and it allows the ecosystem to start forming.

But the real centrepiece—the crown of the semiconductor ecosystem—is the fabrication facility, or fab. That is where silicon wafers are actually processed into chips. We now have at least one major fab announcement, and that is a very significant milestone.

At the same time, we should be careful not to judge progress too quickly. This is not an industry where outcomes can be evaluated in five years. The correct time horizon is at least 10 to 15 years.

Why did India take so long to enter this space, especially given its strength in technology?

Swaroop Ganguly:

It’s not entirely accurate to say India never tried. There were attempts in the past. In fact, in the 1980s, India had a silicon fabrication facility in Chandigarh that was not very far behind global standards at that time.

Unfortunately, that facility was destroyed in a fire, and that event set India back significantly—by decades, in fact. But the loss was not just infrastructure. It was also talent. Many of the people who were working there moved abroad and went on to become leaders in global semiconductor companies.

When you lose something like that, you don’t just lose a facility—you lose the continuity of knowledge, mentorship, and ecosystem-building. That has long-term consequences.

After that, the global semiconductor industry moved very fast, and re-entering it became increasingly difficult. It required a level of policy support and industrial coordination that did not exist at the time. That is what has changed with the India Semiconductor Mission.

How should we interpret the progress under India Semiconductor Mission 1.0 (ISM 1.0)? Has it delivered what was expected?

Swaroop Ganguly:

I think it would be a mistake to look at ISM 1.0 as something that should have delivered results within five years. This industry demands a long-term, patient approach.

ISM 1.0 has led to the approval of multiple manufacturing-related units, most of them in packaging. That is actually a sensible place to begin. Countries like Taiwan and South Korea also started their semiconductor journeys with packaging before moving up the value chain.

There has also been progress in specialty areas such as compound semiconductors, which are used in applications like power electronics, renewable energy, and communications.

So overall, I would say the direction is correct. But the success of ISM should be evaluated over a much longer period—10 to 15 years at least.

So India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) 2.0 is not a reset, but an expansion?

Swaroop Ganguly:

Exactly. ISM 2.0 should be seen as an expansion of scope.

In ISM 1.0, the focus was largely on attracting manufacturing—fabs and packaging units. Now, the thinking is evolving towards building a more complete ecosystem.

That means looking at materials, chemicals, gases, equipment, and all the ancillary industries that support semiconductor manufacturing. At the same time, there is increasing emphasis on research, innovation, education, and training.

This is important because semiconductors are not a one-time investment. As we often say, this is not a bandwagon you jump onto—it’s a treadmill.

What do you mean by that analogy?

Swaroop Ganguly:

The treadmill analogy simply means that once you enter this industry, you have to keep moving. If you stop, you fall off.

Udayan Ganguly:

Yes, and the reason is very simple. The industry evolves continuously. Every couple of years, chips become more powerful, more efficient, more densely packed.

If you don’t keep up with that pace of innovation, your products become uncompetitive. Unlike many other industries, you cannot just build a plant and continue producing the same thing for decades.

For a layperson, what does this “semiconductor moment” actually mean for India?

Udayan Ganguly:

Think about everything you do today—medicine, education, transportation, entertainment. All of it runs on semiconductors.

Now imagine that every time you engage in any of these activities, you are effectively paying someone else for that underlying technology.

You go to a doctor—you are paying a semiconductor fee.

You drive a car—you are paying a semiconductor fee.

You watch a movie—you are paying a semiconductor fee.

So the question is: can a country continue to grow while constantly paying for the technological backbone of its economy?

So this is fundamentally about control over technology?

Udayan Ganguly:

Absolutely.

If India does not control semiconductors to some extent, we are basically fighting a losing battle. This is not just about manufacturing chips—it is about controlling the substrate on which modern society operates.

And this is not a short-term project. This is a 100-year bet. Even building meaningful capability will take at least 30 years.

What are the biggest challenges India faces in this journey?

Udayan Ganguly:

There are three core challenges: technology, talent, and governance.

On technology, the reality is that only a handful of companies globally have access to cutting-edge capabilities. These are not technologies that can simply be purchased at cost.

So India will have to start with slightly older technologies, which is perfectly fine. That is how most countries begin.

On talent, it is not just about having engineers—it is about having deep know-how. The ability to solve problems, innovate, and adapt.

And on governance, this is not a free-market industry. It requires sustained policy support and coordination. Without that, it cannot take off.

What role do startups and academia play in this ecosystem?

Swaroop Ganguly:

They are central to innovation.

India has had design centres of global semiconductor companies for decades. But what we have not had is a large number of products that are designed, owned, and commercialised by Indian companies.

That is where startups and academia come in.

Innovation typically emerges from these spaces—either from academic research translating into startups, or from experienced professionals building new companies.

Can startups play a role in manufacturing as well?

Swaroop Ganguly:

Manufacturing is much more capital-intensive, so it is difficult for startups to enter that space in the conventional sense.

However, there are opportunities in specialised areas—materials, processes, equipment components—where startups can contribute.

Academia also plays a critical role, particularly in advancing research that can feed into industry.

Is there a missing link in India’s semiconductor ecosystem today?

Udayan Ganguly:

Yes—R&D infrastructure.

Globally, there are dedicated semiconductor research centres where new ideas can be tested at scale without disrupting commercial manufacturing.

These centres act as a bridge between academia and industry.

India needs similar facilities. Without them, it becomes difficult to translate research into real-world applications.

What about talent—are we producing enough skilled people?

Udayan Ganguly:

We have strong core capability, but we need to scale significantly.

To meet the demands of a domestic semiconductor ecosystem, we probably need to increase our talent pool by at least ten times.

And this is no longer just about selecting the best candidates. It is about building a pipeline—training, education, and capacity-building across institutions.

Is semiconductor engineering limited to electronics?

Swaroop Ganguly:

Not at all. That is a common misconception.

Semiconductor manufacturing is highly interdisciplinary. It involves physics, chemistry, materials science, and mechanical engineering.

For example, consider a thermal processing step in fabrication. A wafer can be heated from room temperature to over 1000°C in a matter of seconds and then cooled rapidly. That involves complex thermal and mechanical engineering.

So the opportunities extend far beyond traditional electronics.

Who are the key stakeholders in building this ecosystem?

Swaroop Ganguly:

It essentially comes down to three groups: academia, industry, and government.

These three must work together very closely. Without that collaboration, the ecosystem cannot develop.

Government provides policy and support. Industry drives manufacturing and commercialisation. Academia contributes research, talent, and innovation.

Does India need to increase its R&D spending?

Swaroop Ganguly:

Spending is already increasing, which is a positive sign.

But equally important is how that money is used. There are global models where competing companies collaborate on early-stage research, pooling resources and working with academia.

Such models can significantly improve the effectiveness of R&D investment.

Finally, are you optimistic about India’s semiconductor journey?

Udayan Ganguly:

Yes, broadly.

The policy direction is strong, and the incentives are competitive. But this is not something that will succeed automatically.

It requires sustained effort over decades.

Swaroop Ganguly:

Exactly. The direction is right, but the time horizon is long. This is not a sprint—it is a marathon.