New Delhi, Mar 5 (IANS): Rydot Infotech Pvt Ltd from Gujarat has won the ‘ICT Grand Challenge put forth by the Centre to help Indian startups come out with cost-effective solutions to monitor rural water supply, it was announced on Saturday.

The runners-up are Greenvironment Innovation Marketing India Pvt Ltd and GLOBALm Pvt Ltd, a consortium of EyeNet Aqua Solutions Pvt Ltd and Ilonnati Innovations Pvt Ltd.

The ICT Grand Challenge was conducted by the Department of Drinking Water & Sanitation (DWS) under the Ministry of Jal Shakti, in partnership with the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeTY), a release from the Jal Shakti Ministry said.

The technical challenge was also to develop an in-house smart monitoring system for the idea of ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat'.

The aim of the challenge was to bring innovative, modular and cost-effective solutions to develop a ‘smart water supply measurement and monitoring system' to be deployed at the village/semi-rural/semi-urban levels.

The system would collect and facilitate centralised monitoring of data. The participants underwent three-stage evaluation.

The startups carried out pilots in 100 locations across the country in different agro-climatic zones. The monitoring of water supply in these villages is available through the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) dashboard.

The four awardees of the grand challenge were felicitated by Union Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat at a conference in Bengaluru, the release added.