Illustrative Problem Statements

2.1 Safe drinking water and supply reliability

• —Diagnose contamination or deterioration between source and household tap — arsenic, iron, salinity, turbidity, microbial contamination, inadequate chlorination.
• —Correct unequal pressure and supply among head-, middle- and tail-end households in piped systems.
• —Reduce recurring failure of pumps, filters, chlorinators, valves and tanks through locally maintainable monitoring and repair.
• —Develop safe supplementary storage or rainwater harvesting for saline and seasonally water-scarce settlements.
• —Develop methods for selecting a safe aquifer in arsenic- and fluoride-affected areas, and for monitoring falling water tables.
• —Develop workable arrangements for meeting running and repair costs at panchayat level after the capital grant ends.

2.2 Irrigation, drainage, soil moisture and salinity

• —Affordable irrigation scheduling for small and fragmented holdings using soil moisture, crop requirements and local water availability.
• —Diagnose inefficient agricultural pumping; validate low-cost improvements in pumps, pipes and distribution.
• —Identify causes of recurrent waterlogging; test drainage, raised-bed or water-management measures.
• —Monitor freshwater availability and salinity; develop practical irrigation strategies for coastal agriculture.

2.3 Small-farm mechanisation and crop operations

• —Lightweight, repairable tools for sowing, transplanting, weeding and harvesting in small, wet or irregular fields.
• —Reduce drudgery and injury risk for women, elderly farmers and agricultural labourers in repetitive operations.
• —Tools and methods for blocks where working-age men have migrated and field operations fall to women and elderly farmers — or go undone.
• —Equipment and operating arrangements suited to custom hiring by an SHG or FPO, for holdings too small to justify a machine.
• —Safer, more uniform pesticide mixing and spraying, with less operator exposure and chemical waste.
• —Quick checks on the quality of purchased seed, fertiliser and pesticide at the point of sale, usable by a farmer or dealers' association.
• —Improve jute extraction, low-water retting, retting-water management and fibre drying without loss of fibre quality.

2.4 Post-harvest preservation and local processing

• —Reduce grain losses from excess moisture, insects, rodents, fungal growth and unsuitable storage.
• —Solar or hybrid drying that preserves hygiene and product quality in humid or rainy conditions.
• —Reduce bruising, sprouting, rotting and temperature losses in potato, vegetable, fruit, flower and fish chains.
• —Improve ice supply and cold handling at fish landing points and markets.
• —Affordable washing, grading, cooling, packaging and processing systems for FPOs, SHGs and rural enterprises.

2.5 Fisheries, ponds and aquaculture

• —Affordable monitoring of dissolved oxygen, temperature, pH and ammonia, with early warning of fish mortality.
• —Improve energy efficiency and reliability of pond aeration, including emergency operation during power failure.
• —Reduce mortality and quality loss in transport of fingerlings, live fish and harvested fish.
• —Improve water quality, hygiene, icing and waste management in ponds, fish markets and landing points.

2.6 Livestock, dairy and backyard poultry

• —Redesign cattle, goat, pig and poultry shelters to cut heat stress, dampness and disease risk at low cost.
• —Improve milk hygiene and temperature control between milking, village collection and onward transport.
• —Small-scale fodder chopping, drying, silage preparation and protected storage.
• —Safe collection and management of manure, urine and carcasses without contaminating drains, ponds or groundwater.

2.7 Greywater, sanitation and faecal-sludge management

• —Greywater management where conventional soak pits fail — clayey soil, high groundwater, monsoon saturation.
• —Reduce repeated blockage of household, market and street drains through removable silt, food-residue and grease traps.
• —Affordable assessment of septic-tank filling, and safe, timely, mechanical desludging.
• —Diagnose recurring failure of school and public toilets — water availability, odour, accessibility, maintenance. The recurring cost of cleaning and the person responsible are examined along with the design.

2.8 Solid waste and the local circular economy

• —Collection equipment, routes and operating systems for narrow lanes and dispersed settlements, preserving source segregation.
• —Viable treatment for vegetable-market, fish-market and slaughter waste, with control of odour, flies and leachate.
• —Small material-recovery systems for sorting, compacting and transferring plastics, batteries and electronic waste.
• —Convert local residues — paddy straw, rice husk, jute waste, fish waste — into technically sound and useful products.

2.9 Drainage, waterlogging and public water bodies

• —Map recurrent waterlogging; identify blocked, undersized, wrongly sloped or disconnected drains, culverts and natural paths.
• —Low-cost screens, silt traps and mechanised tools for maintaining narrow drains.
• —Restore inlet, outlet and water quality of public ponds affected by sewage, waste, algal growth and fish mortality.
• —Redesign road-drain-culvert interfaces that obstruct natural drainage and cause repeated local flooding.

Work on drains, roads and culverts only where the department owning the asset is a formal partner.

2.10 Reliability and maintenance of public assets

• —Investigate why publicly funded pumps, purifiers, solar lights, toilets, cold rooms and waste systems repeatedly fail.
• —Standardised repair or retrofit kits using components available through local supply chains.
• —Offline asset registers linking condition, repair history, spare parts, cost and responsible operators to maintenance decisions.
• —Redesign public technologies so inspection, replacement and fault diagnosis can be done by trained local personnel.

2.11 Productive energy use and efficiency

• —Measure actual efficiency of pumps, aerators, mills, cold rooms and workshop motors; validate economically viable improvements.
• —Solar or hybrid systems for defined productive uses — drying, cooling, pumping, ice production.
• —Improve battery life and maintainability in decentralised solar systems through sizing, diagnostics and replaceable designs.
• —Redesign kilns, furnaces, boilers and community cooking systems to cut fuel, smoke and occupational heat.
• —Measure and reduce the daily hours spent collecting water, fuel and fodder — and record who does that work.

2.12 Climate- and disaster-resilient settlements

• —Raised, waterproof and cyclone-resistant storage for seed, food, documents, medicines and animal feed.
• —Last-mile warning and backup-power systems for residents who cannot depend on smartphones or continuous connectivity.
• —Low-cost heat-reduction retrofits for schools, anganwadis, workshops and livestock shelters.
• —Local monitoring and warning for flooding, saline intrusion, slope drainage and riverbank erosion, without substituting for major civil works.

2.13 Rural mobility and last-mile logistics

• —Ergonomic carts, carriers and vehicle attachments for vegetables, fish, milk, water and other local loads.
• —Insulated containers and operating practices that preserve perishables during short-distance transport.
• —Transport aids for emergency referral, elderly residents and persons with disabilities on poor or unpaved surfaces.
• —Rapid assessment of village roads, small bridges and culverts, particularly before the monsoon.

2.14 Artisans, SHGs and rural microenterprises

• —Ergonomic tools and workstations for pottery, terracotta, dokra, jute, handloom, bamboo, mat-making and food processing.
• —Improve kilns, dryers, presses, cutters and grinders to reduce fuel, dust, fumes, heat, noise and injury risk.
• —Measure and reduce dust, fume and heat exposure of the worker over the full working day.
• —Low-cost jigs, gauges and testing methods that improve product consistency and reduce waste.
• —Modular fabrication packages that local workshops can manufacture, repair and supply.

2.15 Rural health, safety and assistive technology

• —Improve reliability of power, water, temperature control and essential equipment at rural health facilities.
• —Faster communication and transport for time-critical referrals, including snakebite and maternal emergencies.
• —Adapt assistive devices, toilets, paths and public facilities for elderly residents and those with limited mobility.
• —Reduce defined occupational risks faced by sanitation workers, farmers, artisans and market workers.

Medical devices or diagnostics only with clinical partners, ethical oversight and regulatory validation.

2.16 Local ecosystems and human-environment conflicts

• —Identify nutrient and wastewater sources behind pond eutrophication; validate low-maintenance corrections.
• —Technically and economically credible systems for removing and using invasive aquatic vegetation.
• —Reduce water pollution from jute retting while protecting fibre quality and farmer livelihoods.
• —Reduce effluent from small-town clusters — rice mills, brick kilns, dyeing, electroplating — within the economics of a unit employing a few workers.
• —Non-harmful, institutionally coordinated warning systems for elephant movement and wildlife crossings.

2.17 Rural safety

Drowning and electrocution are among the largest causes of preventable death in these districts. Both admit of technical remedies.

• —Reduce unsupervised entry of small children into ponds near houses, without stopping the household use the pond is needed for.
• —Earthing, enclosure and leakage protection for agricultural pump points and field connections that stay effective in wet fields and do not trip without cause.
• —Reduce burn, fire and machine injury in household kitchens, workshops and small processing units.
• —Rescue and first-aid equipment that can be kept, maintained and used at village level.

2.18 Rural housing

Houses built under rural housing schemes become very hot in summer and damp during the monsoon.

• —Reduce indoor heat through roof, ventilation and material measures that stay within the scheme's unit cost.
• —Improve resistance to monsoon damp, wind and local flooding using materials available in the district.
• —Improve kitchen layout and smoke removal in household cooking areas.
• —Rapid assessment of existing village housing before the monsoon.

2.19 Schools and anganwadis

• —Reliable electricity during teaching hours; low-cost working equipment for school laboratories and workshops.
• —Reduce fuel use, cook's smoke exposure and food-safety risk in mid-day meal kitchens.
• —Improve water availability, handwashing and safe drinking water.

2.20 Getting entitlements at the delivery point

Work here must have a named user, an office responsible for delivery, a physical service behind it, and a measurable loss.

• —Reduce fingerprint authentication failure at ration, pension and wage payment points — common among manual workers and elderly persons.
• —Arrangements for delivery points that keep working when the network is down.
• —Practical ways of correcting name, age and land-record mismatches that block eligible households.