The Jaison Water Tap or Jayson Water Tap (also known as Waste Not Water Tap) is a self-closing water-saving tap invented in the early 20th century Innovators and patent holders
Achuthsankar S. Nair,

The Hindu ''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It was founded as a weekly publication in 1878 by the Triplicane Six, becoming a daily in 1889. It is one of the India ...

, Thiruvananthapuram, 13 January 2017 by J.P. Subramonya Iyer at

Travancore The kingdom of Travancore (), also known as the kingdom of Thiruvithamkoor () or later as Travancore State, was a kingdom that lasted from until 1949. It was ruled by the Travancore Royal Family from Padmanabhapuram, and later Thiruvanan ...

, South India. These taps were a common sight on the roads in erstwhile

, part of modern-day

Kerala Kerala ( , ) is a States and union territories of India, state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile ...

state in South

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. They are quite popular throughout the Indian sub-continent and can still be commonly found in most of the traditional railway stations operated by

Indian Railways Indian Railways is a state-owned enterprise that is organised as a departmental undertaking of the Ministry of Railways (India), Ministry of Railways of the Government of India and operates India's national railway system. , it manages the fou ...

. The Jaison water tap is an excellent example of commercialized grass roots innovation from modern India, that went far beyond what is typically termed

Jugaad Jugaad (Hindustani language, Hindustani: (Hindi) / (Urdu)) is a concept of non-conventional, frugal innovation in the Indian subcontinent. It also includes innovative fixes or simple workarounds, solutions that bend the rules, or resources ...

life hack A life hack (or life hacking) is any trick, shortcut, skill, or novelty method that increases productivity and efficiency, in all walks of life. The term was primarily used by computer experts who suffer from information overload or those with a p ...

. Its production was an economic activity that created wealth and helped solve the problem of water wastage in public water taps and thus brought significant benefits to the Indian society.

History

J.P. Subramonya Iyer, who invented the tap, was a grass-root innovator, start-up hero, global technology merchant. He served as an insurance officer in the erstwhile Travancore-Cochin state. Upon noticing the wastage of water from road-side water taps that were carelessly left open, he perceived the need to develop an automatically closing tap. With the help of a few friends who were engineers such as

Sri Rajangam Sri Rajangam Iyer (1903 - 1948) was one of the first native Indian engineering managers of the South Indian Railway Company of British India. Sri Rajangam was the deputy Chief mechanical engineer of South Indian Railways (SIR). He was the first ...

(who was the Deputy Chief Mechanical Engineer of

South Indian Railway The South Indian Railway Company operated a number of gauge lines in South India from 1874 to 1951. History The Great Southern of India Railway Company was established with its headquarters in England in 1853. The Carnatic Railway Company wa ...

aka S.I.R.) and S.L.Narayanan, he developed such a tap. He patented the invention, improved it further and patented the improved tap version as well. However, it is not clear if any such crude self-closing water tap existed before the ''Jaison water taps'' were invented. In order to facilitate large-scale production, Subramonya Iyer set up a factory at

Karamana Karamana is a suburb of Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of Kerala, India. It is one of the most densely populated but green parts of Thiruvananthapuram. The land is serviced by the Karamana River, which originates from the southern tip of ...

. Due to militant trade union activism prevalent in the region, the factory had to shut shop and moved to

Coimbatore Coimbatore (Tamil: kōyamputtūr, ), also known as Kovai (), is one of the major Metropolitan cities of India, metropolitan cities in the States and union territories of India, Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located on the banks of the Noyy ...

International use

The Jayson Tap has been used in many countries such as

Nepal Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

and

Bhutan Bhutan, officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked country in South Asia, in the Eastern Himalayas between China to the north and northwest and India to the south and southeast. With a population of over 727,145 and a territory of , ...

particularly in rural environments. HydroPlan, a German company, purchased the rights to produce, sell and distribute the tap worldwide except in India and Sri Lanka. Subsequently, the tap spread to

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

and

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

Current deployments

Ironically, the popularity of this water tap is much lower in the

Trivandrum Thiruvananthapuram ( ), also known as Trivandrum, is the capital city of the Indian state of Kerala. As of 2011, the Thiruvananthapuram Municipal Corporation had a population of 957,730 over an area of 214.86 sq. km, making it the largest and ...

city today. Public water taps on roads face extinction in Kerala, due to the increasing affluence of people who get addicted to bottled water. The

still use the Jaison water taps effectively and widely across India, both inside the trains and at the stations. Both metal-based and plastic-based variants are in use.

References

{{reflist Innovation in India Water conservation

History

International use

Current deployments

See also

References