Arun Lakhani and Urban Waste Water Management

Posted by Ankush Trivedi on July 22nd, 2016

Urban wastewater management has grown to be a challenge in India as infrastructural development and regulations have not kept pace with population growth & urbanization. Annually more and more people are moving into cities, and the figures are expected to reach about 600 million by 2030 making India more peri urban than urban. Already, there is enormous pressure on planners to provide utility services, and water supply is a priority, particularly where peri-urban water is exported formally or informally to fulfill city requirements. At the same time, the urban return flow (wastewater) also increases, which is usually about 70-80% of the water supply. The challenge of the growing Indian economy is that, in many cities, the wastewater generated is a mixture of domestic and industrial wastewater which makes risk alleviation and reuse recommendations a challenge. Lack of systematic data on the different discharges makes it difficult to estimate the volume and quality of wastewater discharged and the total area under (usually informal) wastewater irrigation. Arun Lakhani firmly believes as a nation we need to tap into the Waste Water Treatment and Sewage Water Treatment for sustainable living in India.

Vishvaraj Infrastructure Limited (VIL India) spotted the following opportunities in the Waste Water Reuse Opportunities. Namami Gange Program. Ganga authority is planning to create treatment facility for 12,000 MLD of sewage and 3,000 MLD of industrial effluent. Reuse of the treated water is part of the program. Reuse for the power plants and industries. Power plants across India are hypothetically to use treated water, if sewage is available within 50 kms in the vicinity of power plant. Governments of Rajsthan and Maharasthra have taken the lead.

Nagpur 24x7 – The success story: The 3rd largest city & winter capital of Maharashtra state, Nagpur is India’s loath largest city with a inhabitants of over 2.5 million people. It became the first city of its size in the country to outsource its water supply to a private operator under the PPP model for 25 years. The one big objective was to provide l00% safe drinking water 24×7 to l00% of the population including the slum-dwellers within 5 years. The second major objective was to reduce Non Revenue Water below 25% in 10 years time. The contract was awarded to Orange City Water Limited — a 50:50 joint venture SPV company incorporated with equal equity stake of Vishvaraj Environment Pvt. Ltd. and Veolia Water of France. The Private entity to bring in 3o% of the investment of the estimated project cost, 70% to be the Public entity’s contribution under MN URM + l00% escalation. The project to be operative for 25 years of O&M inclusive of 5 years of capital rehabilitation. The project covers management of the entire water cycle from production, treatment (657 MLD), transport (2100 Kms of network), storage and delivery to the last point of usage i.e. the customers tap. This involves replacement of more than 3,00,00 house service connections, rehabilitation of treatment facilities, service reservoirs and pipeline. Every household including slums to get individual continuous piped water supply connection. 24×7 Call center for customer grievances, Photo billing, Online billing and Customer service center open on all 7 days of week.

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Ankush Trivedi

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Ankush Trivedi
Joined: July 1st, 2016
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