Indian Politics & Policy Volume 1, Number 2, Fall 2018 | Page 112

Parameters of Successful Wastewater Reuse in Urban India
Yamuna rivers could be better protected
from pollution if wastewater were
diverted away from in stream flows and
used in this manner after treatment.
At present, there are two private
companies working with the NDMC to
construct and maintain these new STPs.
Ecosystem Resource Management Pvt
Ltd has built five plants (four operating
and one under construction) on the Soil
Biotechnology model invented by Professor
Shankar’s team at IIT-Bombay.
Over the last 20 years, M.Sc. and Ph.D.
students have developed and tested the
soil biotechnology approach and it is
now a patented method for wastewater
treatment. The plants are built quickly
and operated with low skilled labor.
They require very little power and take
up much less land than conventional
plants, for instance, 500 m 2 for a 500 kld
plant. The other company working with
the NDMC is SS Engineering Corporation.
They have built two plants on the
MBR or Membrane Bioreactor model
and a third is under construction. This
method requires very little land but
consumes more electrical power in the
activated sludge process. Sludge is generated
every day, so it must be collected
and distributed for horticulture and irrigation.
The plants range in treatment
capacity from 100 to 500 kiloliters per
day. The NDMC plans to install other
smaller units like these in schools and
housing colonies. These smaller projects
will be undertaken by NEERI—the
National Environmental Engineering
Research Institute—using their own
patented phytorid technology. All of
the STPs in this NDMC cluster draw
their wastewater from a nearby drain or
nala, and avoid the need to build long
pipelines from point sources of wastewater.
The longest pipeline is around
750 m. The specific arrangement in the
public–private partnership between
the NDMC and the company is that
the company covers most of the costs
involved in building and maintaining
the sanitation supply chain. These
costs include laying pipelines from the
nearest wastewater source to the plant,
treatment plant building costs, and operation
and maintenance costs for 12
years. The installation costs include
procuring, financing, plant construction,
staff for operation and maintenance,
water storage, and distribution.
Over the whole system, a significant
savings occurs by removing the need to
transport the wastewater long distances
to a treatment plant. It is simply a matter
of tapping in to the subterranean
tunnels of wastewater coursing underneath
every part of the city. But land is
a significant challenge and the NDMC
case is unique in that available space in
the parks can be utilized for these projects
without causing any displacement.
The tighter land situation in other cities
may restrict the feasibility of decentralized
STPs. STPs in the NDMC area are
located in the parks maintained by the
NDMC, so the scope for community
participation is minimal.
In these garden projects, the contract
between the government and the
company defines the capital and maintenance
responsibilities of both parties.
In that contract, the NDMC agrees to
buy all the water produced by the plant
while allowing access to the city wastewater
drain where the raw supply is
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