NITI Aayog moots roadmap for India's transition to circular water economy

New Delhi, Nov 8 (IANS) NITI Aayog is drawing up a roadmap with international and private-sector collaborative business models, innovative financing and technology partnerships to accelerate India’s transition toward a circular water economy through the reuse of waste-water.

In the context of emerging fresh water crisis, discussions on the issue were held at a two-day National Workshop on “Reuse of Treated Wastewater in India” hosted by NITI Aayog in collaboration with the Government of Karnataka and the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board on 6–7 November in Bengaluru under its state support mission, according to an official statement issued on Saturday.

NITI Aayog member Vinod Paul emphasised the need for optimally utilising the potential offered by used water reuse for a win-win approach to the Viksit Bharat 2047.

He highlighted the need for state-level policies on the reuse and development of enforceable common standards for different uses, integrating the reuse of water for emerging areas of water requirement like data centres, health aspects of reuse and behaviour change.

Scaling up the reuse of treated waste-water, represents a transformative opportunity to ensure water security, reduce freshwater dependency, strengthen climate resilience and advance the principles of resource circularity, the statement said.

Best practices from several states were presented by senior State functionaries. Gujarat’s scalable reuse models, Delhi’s revenue-generating initiatives, Indore’s multi-sectoral approach for popularising reuse, Karnataka’s integrated rural-industrial reuse systems, Tamil Nadu’s tertiary treated water for industrial use and Maharashtra’s technology-enabled grey water solutions were discussed as possibilities for the other States to scale up the reuse.

The Chief Secretary Government of Karnataka, Shalini Rajneesh, outlined the path-breaking initiatives taken by the state utilising the crisis in 2024 in the city, like using water reuse for rejuvenation of lakes and meeting industrial demand. She urged the gathering to come up with strategic ideas for the Nation and the State to take up actions to improve the reuse potential.

The participants urged the need for robust state-level policies by 2030 and clear common standards for multiple end-use applications. The importance of establishing grid infrastructure, real-time quality monitoring systems, inter alia, from the health perspective of the user and capacity building within utilities to ensure effective implementation.

The need for cost-effective technologies and sustainable operation and maintenance frameworks for de-centralised treatment systems is identified as an enabler of treated water reuse.

The workshop concluded with a field visit on 7th November to BWSSB’s K&C Valley Sewage Treatment Plant and Cubbon Park Treatment Plant, where participants from the States observed the advanced technologies for treatment and reuse.

The workshop was attended by senior officials from 18 States, policy experts from think tanks, industry leaders, researchers, academia, UNICEF, representative of Government of Israel for South India, Singapore Water Association and knowledge partners to deliberate on challenges, opportunities and innovations in increasing the use of treated water for applications in agriculture, domestic non-potable and industrial use, and come out with actionable recommendations to help India’s circular water economy and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

--IANS

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