Indian Politics & Policy Volume 1, Number 2, Fall 2018 | Page 101

Indian Politics & Policy
We focused on the human determinants
of functionality and did not assess
technological adequacy, efficiency,
or success. 6 We draw upon other recent
reports for those measures (see Starkl et
al. 2018). We are concretizing the notion
of success here to mean a project
that can reduce contamination of the
ecological or hydrological system to a
degree deemed to be an improvement
from an immediately previous condition.
The understandings of previous
conditions and improvements are taken
from information provided in the focus
groups and interviews with concerned
authorities, scientists, and citizens.
The four cases involve large
agencies and/or businesses: the NDMC,
a government agency; IIT-M, an autonomous
government institution; the
Keshopur Bus Depot, a public–private
partnership; and the Marriott hotel,
a fully private enterprise. The similarity
among these cases is that all the
water-consuming entities have to buy
water from the government institutions
responsible for water supply.
These government institutions are the
Delhi Jal Board (or DJB) in the case
of the garden STPs and the Keshopur
Bus Depot; the Chennai Metro Water
Supply Board in the case of IIT-M;
and the Brihannmumbai Water Supply
Board in the case of the Marriott Hotel.
The two main push factors in these
cases are: (1) National Green Tribunal
(hereafter NGT) orders on mandatory
treatment and reuse of wastewater and
(2) the NGT and Central Groundwater
Commission limits or bans on the use
of groundwater. 7 Apart from explaining
these external push determinants,
we also describe how variously positioned
agents (as managers, scientists,
and company members) discuss these
treatment infrastructures, the microbial
reactions that produce this water
and the trace metals, substances, and
pathogens remaining in the treated water.
In these discussions, water values
are directly related to the mechanics of
technologies. Producers and consumers
see the waters produced at different
stages of treatment and recycling as
differentiated forms. As Barnes (2014)
has argued for irrigation water reuse
in Egypt and Bjorkman (2015) has for
Mumbai supply, water is not simply
water, but becomes different waters, in
terms of quality and quantity over time
and space. 8
The Bus Depot: Situated
Categories of Water
Water recycling is now a legal
requirement for large
institutional users of water
such as industries, universities, housing
complexes, and five-star hotels. 9 With
these requirements come readjustments
in the ways citizens define their water
sources and the relative quality they
impute to each source. In general, most
of our interviews with project communities
revealed that recycled wastewater
is considered inappropriate for direct
human uses, but companies and municipalities
are realizing its potential to
supply nonessential or nonhuman contact
uses, such as water for horticulture,
toilet flushing, and industrial processes.
This means that users are categorizing
water supplies in new ways and directing
that specific uses be made for each
supply category. This demonstrates
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