Dr Bhakti Devi holds a BE in Civil Engineering and ME in Environment Engineering – both from University of Bombay. She completed her PhD (Water Management) from the University of Western Sydney, Australia in 2009 .
After working for six years as an Academic in the School of Civil & Environmental Engineering at VJTI in Bombay, she migrated to Australia in 1994. She spent 24 years advancing the cause of sustainable water management in Australia – the driest continent on earth. In particular, she championed decentralised water services and community engagement & participation in water. She did so while working in diverse functions across the value chain of the water system, namely -strategy, policy, planning, capacity building, design and operations.
She returned to India in 2017 with a desire to propagate community led decentralised water solutions in urban and rural India. Therefore, she founded two platforms namely Urban Water Doctor & Jalsmruti which offer training, tools and support to citizens, community groups, campuses and cities in becoming sustainably water efficient & self-sufficient. She developed these resources and tools based on the research she did independently studying urban water systems in Bengaluru and rural water situation in remote villages of Eastern UP and Maharashtra.
Noteworthy organisations where Dr Bhakti Devi has previously worked and made her contributions to include – Sydney Water Corporation, City of Sydney, Centre for Water Sensitive Cities, Institute for Sustainable Futures, CRC for Irrigation Futures, Cooks River Alliance, Sydney Harbour Catchment Management Authority, CDD Society, Alttech Foundation, Good Earth, Community Action for Rural Development (CARD) and Banwasi Seva Ashram.
You can reach her at bhakti.d@rishihood.edu.in