"The Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) and Grand Challenges India have announced the “Transformative Sanitation Technologies (TST)” call, inviting Indian-led entities—companie, NGOs/societies, academic institutions, government agencies—for the development of off-grid, decentralised sanitation solutions that treat waste onsite, use minimal water, recycle treated water and are regulation-ready for household or community settings. The India TST call thus aims to identify, support, and scale a new generation of indigenous sanitation technologies solutions that are off-grid & decentralized, ensures pathogen-free waste, meets environmental norms, low on water usage, promotes recycling, cost effective, regulation-ready, and built for the realities of India’s diverse contexts. The challenge sparks a powerful opportunity to develop a new generation of Transformative Sanitation Technologies (TSTs), by catalysing the development and piloting of working models of advanced, decentralized wastewater management and toilet technologies. The goal is not just to improve toilets, but to embed them in India’s broader development vision and reimagine them as closed-loop, resource-recovering, digitally enabled systems that tackle water stress, environmental degradation, and public health risks simultaneously. Thus, the need is two-fold: to build a pipeline of novel, economically sound, and robust TSTs, and to ensure they are designed for mass diffusion and last-mile deployment. By supporting innovators through funding, technical handholding, and deployment pathways, the TST Challenge will help create market-ready, regulation-compliant, and relevant products for the Indian ecosystem and beyond."
Last date: Nov 10, 2025
