Nagpur’s smart water management is an example for other cities across India

 

A special train carried around five lakh litres of water for parched Latur in Maharashtra’s Marathwada region in April this year. The first batch of 10 wagons, each with a capacity of around 50,000 litres, travelled a distance of around 350 kilometres to reach their destination where water was stored in a well located near the Latur railway station. 

For 14 years now, arid Rajasthan has been using the railways to get water to its districts. This year since January, the state’s Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) has been running a 50-wagon train from Ajmer to Bhilwara daily, carrying 25 lakh litres. 

While these steps are necessary, such measures might not have been required in the first place had these cities managed their water systems well. And with the smart cities list being announced, it’s time these cities took a smart look at their water management systems.

The first city to take the lead is Nagpur, Maharashtra. Now included in the smart cities list, it has a population of over 2.5 million people and is the first city of its size in the country to outsource water supply to a private operator under the PPP model for 25 years. Under the scheme the main objective was to provide 24-hour 100% safe drinking water to 100% population including slum dwellers within five years. The second objective was to reduce non-revenue water (50% water supplied to towns which is untraceable, not recorded and not paid for) to below 25% in 10 years. The project included management of the entire water cycle from production, treatment, transport, storage and delivery to the customer’s tap. It involved replacement of over three lakh house service connections, rehabilitation of treatment facilities, service reservoirs and pipelines. 

“Now every household has a tap and a meter irrespective of whether it is a jhuggi, a flat or a bungalow. There is accountability for every drop of water supplied the first time,” says Arun Lakhani, chairman and managing director, Vishvaraj Infrastructure Ltd, which executed the Nagpur Orange City Water Project.

The aim of the project was to address problems of water that was being wasted and not getting billed. The city was supplying 575 million litres per day (mld) of treated water of which only 175 mld was getting billed and paid for. Most meters were either non-existent or non functional. Also, the city was receiving water supply for eight to 10 hours or on alternate days. The tanker mafia added to the problem. On the sewage side, the city was generating 550 mld of sewage and had the capacity to treat only 100 mld. The remaining untreated sewage was polluting water bodies that supplied water to the city.

For this project, the private company invested 30% of the estimated project cost, 70% grants came from the JNNURM scheme, shared by both the state and the Central government. The project was initiated by the Nagpur Municipal Corporation. This project has showcased as the model case study for other cities at the launch of Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) and Smart City initiative.

The company also undertook a waste water reuse project for Nagpur city under which National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) will be reusing 200 mld of treated water from the STP for its Mauda plant. By doing so, the city will get an additional 200 million litres per day of water, which is enough for 200 lakh people.

“Currently, the industrial sector, which is one of the biggest consumers of water, is supplied fresh treated potable water. They can easily use waste water treated up to the secondary level. As much as 80% of the water being supplied to cities is right there. It only needs to be treated and supplied to industries. Good potable water that industries get can be swapped for residential and drinking purposes,” says Arun Lakhani. 

Out of a 1,000 ml litre per day supplied to a town, nearly 800 mld is coming back as sewage. Out of this almost 500 mld can be treated and supplied to commercial complexes, industries, thermal power stations and water city parks. This can solve water shortage problems in almost every town, he says.

Faridabad in NCR is ideal for this kind of a project as the commercial base is huge. Supplying treated water to factories and industries will help the city manage its water requirements. It can also make the city cross subsidise drinking water for its citizens.

Gurgaon’s water producing capacity is around 320 mld of water per day. With a population of 15 lakh, the consumption of water should not be more than 200 litres per day per person, yet the area has water scarcity. “The reason is that there is no accountability of water supplied, no maintenance of pipelines, no idea of what is being utilised and what is supplied and the amount that is being wasted.” he says. 

The “Haryana Power Generation Corporation Limited is in discussions with us for possible use of sewage treated water for all the plants,” he says. Discussions are also on with Ghaziabad municipality and NTPC, Dadri, for supplying treated sewage water to the Dadri water plant. 

The company has also bid for NDMC’s pilot 24x7 water distribution system. As for tackling Dwarka’s water plan, Lakhani suggests that packaged STPs with a capacity of supplying 10 lakh litres per day to Dwarka are the best solution. This facility can be set up within two weeks and can tap sewage from around the sub city. 

It has also offered solutions for watering cricket grounds and pitches wherein an STP set up on site to tap sewage and reuse the treated water.

This New is Originally Posted on Hindustan Times
 

Power sector wakes up to Rs.30k-cr opportunity

More than three months after the tariff policy amendments were unveiled by the government, the power sector is waking up to an obscure provision that has the potential to attract over Rs.30,000-crore investment into sewage water treatment plants around thermal generating stations.

The policy has made it mandatory for thermal plants within 50 km of sewage treatment facilities to use treated sewage water. The policy would ensure availability of more potable water in the areas adjacent to the power plant, the government had said.

“We have started implementing the policy for thermal plants with NTPC’s Nagpur unit being the first to source treated sewage water from the city’s municipal body. Additionally, we have always made extensive plans for groundwater conservation in coal and mineral mining,” power minister Piyush Goyal told reporters.

He added that the government was also looking at making thermal plants along the Ganges use treated water so that the effluent isn’t discharged into the river.

As per industry estimates, nearly 80 gigawatt (GW) of thermal capacity would be covered by the provision. If all these plants source their entire water requirement from sewage treatment plants (STP), it would amount to nearly 8,000 million litres per day (MLD). Typically, a thermal power station requires about 3-5 litres of water to produce one unit of power.

It is estimated that the extra cost for a power plant in procuring this water, including the associated pipeline of average 50-km length, would result in a tariff hike of about 5-7 paise/unit.

“This clause would apply mostly to the Centre and state-owned plants that are located around the periphery of cities and towns,” a top NTPC official told FE. He added that the company had already signed an informal agreement for use of sewage treated water at its plants in Mouda and Solapur in Maharashtra.

The company has been prompt in signing pacts for Maharashtra plants as several state-owned thermal stations have been forced to suspend operations temporarily due to scarcity of water this year.

This practice is likely to take off with NTPC’s involvement in it. The state-run thermal power giant has entered into an agreement with Vishvaraj Infrastructure, a company that has been selected to run Nagpur’s 200-MLD STP in a first public-private partnership project in water treatment.

“We will be supplying 150 MLD to NTPC Mouda plant while we are looking for buyers for remaining 50 MLD supplies,” Arun Lakhani, chairman and managing director of Vishvaraj Infrastructure, told FE. He added that the difficulty in making return on investment on sewage plants had been holding the interested investors at bay.

Most urban centres’ STPs are run by local bodies with grossly inadequate capacity to handle sewage generated by a particular centre. For example, Nagpur alone produces over 500 MLD of sewage water, but the treatment capacity is for only 100 MLD.

“The industry and government are both waking up to the water crisis. We already have the policy from the power ministry that will create incentives for private players to install STPs as buyers would now be available,” Arun Lakhani said.

This New is Originally Posted on THE FINANCIAL EXPRESS

Water Woe Signals $17 Billion Opportunity for India Recycler

India’s water crisis is set to spur the development of a market for recycling plants that could eventually be worth at least $17 billion, driven in part by demand from industries, according to Vishvaraj Infrastructure Ltd.

The nation’s largest cities produce 38 billion liters of waste water daily, all of which will have to be recycled eventually, Chairman Arun Lakhani said. While that requires major investment in treatment facilities, the government will need to provide sufficiently attractive waste water contracts to realize the full potential of the market, he said.

“Treated sewage can become the most secure source of water for industry in future,” Nagpur, Maharashtra-based Lakhani said in a May 13 interview. “Thermal power plants use a lot of water and they’re the ideal candidates for this.”

One of the country’s worst droughts in decades is set to ease from June if predictions of good monsoon rains prove accurate. Even so, the parched conditions underscore the longer-term challenge from depleting groundwater as well as surface-water disruption. Shortages threaten to increase flash-points between industry, agriculture and the 1.3 billion people in India needing drinking water.

Coal Plants

More than 40 percent of about 186 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity in India could switch to using recycled waste water in the next five years because of federal government rules, Lakhani said. Treatment projects worth at least $8 billion could arise during this time, he said.

Money is the major obstacle to expanding municipal recycling. Metering is patchy in India, and officials are under pressure to keep tariffs affordable as most people live on less than $3.10 per day. Annual sales of treated water are only about $1.6 billion currently in Asia’s No. 3 economy, consultancy TechSci Research Pvt. estimates.

Four charts illustrate the water sector opportunity in India:

India’s annual freshwater withdrawal exceeds that of even China, the world’s most-populous country:

When per capita availability drops below 1,700 cubic meters annually, the situation is described as water stressed. By 2050, India won’t be far from the 1,000 cubic meter mark below which water scarcity begins:

Two straight poor monsoon seasons in 2014 and 2015 left India this year with one of its worst droughts since independence. A heatwave exacerbated the problem:

Both Veolia Environnement SA and Suez Environnement Co., two top European water companies, said last year that they are looking to expand in India. Chennai-based VA Tech Wabag Ltd., which builds treatment plants, has climbed 130 percent in the past five years. Vishvaraj said it’s talking with overseas companies about jointly pursuing the water opportunity in India:

This New is Originally Posted on bloomberg