 |
| Arun Lakhani, CMD, Vishvaraj Infrastructure Ltd |
Pune: A city-based organisation's water
management plan is among the four projects selected by the Centre and the
European Union (EU) for study and implementation.
The city is hosting a three-day international
conference on 'Water Management & Waste Water Treatment' will address acute
water shortage and water management issues and delve on workable technologies
for sewage treatment. The conference is organized by the National Environmental
Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) of the Council of Scientific and
Industrial Research (CSIR), Ecosan, and supported by the Department of Science
and Technology (DST), Government of India, and the EU.
City-based EcoSan Services Foundation's water
management plan, 'NaWaTech', is one of the four projects selected by the
Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India and EU. The
project was showcased at Yashada on Thursday, the first day of the
international conference.
The four projects that were showcased at the
conference were selected under the framework of the India-European Union
Science & Technology research and innovation project in water technology
and management.
"With more people migrating to cities, water
resources are dwindling. Hence, It has become mandatory to go for waste water
treatment as the situation will only worsen. We have to look at shifting from
the conventional approach. Research and innovation should be our constant
endeavour," said Girish Bapat, the city's guardian minister of Pune.
"India pumps out almost 80% sewage out of
the total water supplied. We can treat at least 60% of this. This water can be
used for construction, gardening, etc," said Arun Lakhani, chairman and
managing director of Vishvaraj Infrastructure, India, which
has implemented the 24x7 water scheme in Nagpur using a public private
partnership model.
The four projects showcased are NaWaTech, Eco
India, Swings and Saraswati. They focus on various water treatment and
management technologies developed and implemented by various research
institutes. The projects are jointly funded by both DST-GOI and the European
Commission. They were selected on the basis of minimum maintenance, low energy
consumption, large scope to scale up and cost effectiveness.
"For the water-based projects, Rs 16mn
funding has been provided jointly by DST and EU. Both the Indian and European
consortiums will work jointly on these projects to assess and enhance the
potential of natural and technical water treatment systems to suit local
conditions," said Arvind Kumar, scientist-E of the International
Multilateral and Regional Cooperation department, in DST-GOI.
NaWaTech, which stands for Natural Water Systems
and Treatment Technologies, is a three-year collaborative project. It works
under a consortium of seven European organizations and universities and seven
Indian members, headed by NEERI which also includes the Pune Municipal
Corporation (PMC). "NaWaTech is based on optimized use of surface water
supply, rain water, storm water as well as grey water," said DB Panse,
director Ecosan Services Foundation.
As per Panse added, NaWaTech's largest project
has been implemented at the College of Engineering Pune campus. The second site
where NaWaTech has been implemented is the 400-acre towship, Amanora Park Town.
Mangesh Dighe, head of environment cell head of
PMC, said, "One such system has been installed at the Maharashtra Jeevan
Pradhikaran office in Pune. The water will supplied to the Indradhanushya
centre, Sachin Tendulkar Park and a public toilet near Ambil odha." He
also said that the PMC environment cell with the garden department will visit
areas of the city to see which river, nullah and lake can be tapped for
wastewater treatment project.
This News
is Originally Posted on TIME OF INDIA
No comments:
Post a Comment