Friday 24 September 2021

College of Engineering Pune Hostel Wastewater Treatment System

NaWaTech stands for natural water systems and treatment technologies to cope with water shortages in urbanised areas in India. It is a project under the European Commission's 7 Framework Programme and is co- funded by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. The NaWaTech consortium aims to promote an integrated approach for wastewater treatment which would include interventions over the entire urban water cycle optimization of water use by reusing water and pollution of freshwater resources preventing prioritization of small scale natural technical systems, which are flexible, cost-effective and require low operation and maintenance. The NaWaTech project started on April 1, 2013, and it has a scheduled duration of 36 months. Pune and Nagpur have been selected as the two cities for implementation of the project in India. The hostel campus at College of Engineering Pune is the largest project site in Pune chosen for NaWaTech. 


COEP Hostel Campus Site is one of the oldest Hostel currently houses 2000 students. The task was to design a wastewater treatment system for the existing capacity Given that the campus has many heritage structures, green cover and upcoming buildings, it was a challenge to find an adequate space for the system. 



Treatment System at COEP Hostel Campus

Decentralized anaerobic systems for primary treatment and Planted Gravel Filter/Wetland for posttreatment of water and greywater treatment. Anaerobic System designed by Ecosan Service Foundation Vertical flow wetland designed by Iridra S.R.L which is an Italian firm.The treated water will be used for gardening and flushing in the hostel blocks. 


Total Treatment Capacity = 180 cu m of wastewater per day 

Current Reuse Potential = 113 cu m per day

It is proposed that in the near future the excess treated water will be reused for construction activities in the campus and later on for activities like dust suppression in the college cricket ground.



DTS 40 = 40 cu m/day capacity Decentralised Anaerobic Treatment System 

DTS 100 = 100 cu m/day capacity Decentralised Anaerobic Treatment System 

PGF 1 = 40 cu m/day capacity Planted Gravel Filter

PGF2 = 100 cu m/day capacity Planted Gravel Filter 


Schematic Flow Diagram for Treatment System at COEP Hostel




FAQs 


1. Has a feasibility study been done?

 • Yes, based on which the proposal was submitted to COEP for approval 


2. What are the operational costs? 

• The installation and operation costs must not be large, since the students are the ones who are affected by the costs. 

• The system is of NaWaTech project which is an Indo-EU joint project funded by Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India. 

• Almost 75% of the capital Investment cost comes from this funding, a treatment system is now a legal requirement for institutions or premises which have a high residential population. Annual OEM costs including labor, desludging, consumables, pumping cost-Rs.135 per capita 

• This is very low as compared to other conventional technologies which cost upwards of Rs. 300 per capita annually 


3. How high is the space demand? 

• The one being planned at COEP has different units. The area wise occupancy of the units are Anaerobic Systems 

• DTS 40: 71.25mDTS 100: 114 m. 

• Planted Gravel Filters/Wetland Systems 

• PGF 1 (40m3/day) 133 m² 

• PGF 2 (100m3/day): 405m 


4. In case of a breakdown, how long will it take to fix the problem? 

• Depends on the nature of the problem. 

• For e.g., if there is a problem with the pumps, then there will be standby pumps available so there would be no interference with the operation of the system. 

• If there is choking in the system, then it might take a couple of hours to a day for the blockage to be removed. 


5. What will be done with the sludge? 

• Sludge will be taken away once every two years by PMC designated private company. It will be dealt with at a dedicated sludge management facility for production of manure 

• No smell from the sludge during operation of the plant. Some smell might be experienced during desludging. 

• But this is only a maintenance activity which happens once in two years and is completed within one day. 





References and Sources 

Pictures - Primary survey https://wateractionhub.org/projects/1152/d/nawatech-water-treatment-in-urbanised-areas-inindia/ https://worldarchitecture.org/architecture-projects/hzhff/girls_hostel_coep_pune-project-pages.html https://coepianforcoepians.wordpress.com/2017/06/14/a-z-of-the-coep-boys-hostels-gaurav-chandak/ 


Content – COEP Hostel 

All rights belong to their respective owners. I do not own any of this content


Kaveri Gaikwad, CoEP, Pune

Shubham Rane, CoEP, Pune

Rushikesh Kharche, CoEP, Pune














Tuesday 21 September 2021

Vizag: The discord between water policy and social policy

 My experience at Biome involved studying the case of Visakhapatnam – by keeping the water situation at the centre. To me this study has reflected reality. A reality that can change the perception we view cities as societies. Studying its past and associating it to the present gave me little optimism for the future – where expecting a light at the end of the tunnel is onerous. Yet, the solution begins only when we recognise this reality. The essay begins with some description of the city – its geography and prominence followed by the current water scenario – with the potential of alternate sustainable solutions and some reflections of the social dynamics of the city and the discord that exists between water policy and social policy.


The city of Vizag is surrounded by some pleasant mountains and many unpleasant social complications. Post bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh in 2014, the city emerged as the largest in the state – with a population of around two million according to the 2011 census. Vizag is surrounded by rural hamlets with the presence of the Bay of Bengal at its south. The city is also the main hub for Uttarandhra – a region infamous for water scarcity. The river Godavari plays a prominent role in supplying the water needs to the city. The figure attached below provides an idea of the major water sources and their distance from the city. It is clear that surface water is playing a vital role in catering the city's water requirements. 



Surface water – As Past, Present, and Future 


The City’s administrative body Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) answers the questions of ensuring water access through looking at large surface water infrastructures. This has been the case ever since the city started expanding. Local reservoirs such as Mudsarlova and Meghadri Gedda, and their capabilities to produce and distribute water are diminishing. In order to meet the city's future water demands – both domestic and industrial, ideas like constructing mega dams like Polavaram are being advocated by the governments –both local and regional. Even the option of desalination is being considered by the current state government as a substitute for industrial demands of water. 


Surface water indeed helps in bridging the gaps of water access. It’s hard discounting the role they play in any city in serving water to its residents. What turns this into an issue is the way they are being prioritised over other sources of water, turning blind towards other ways of providing water. The authorities are looking for more surface water structures to cater the city's  predicted water needs in future. “The vanishing importance of local reservoirs is one of the reasons we keep depending on water which is far away” said Mr. E.A.S. Sarma, former bureaucrat, during one of our interactions.  “The ultimate way forward lies only when we revive these local assets,” he advocated.  


Looking and studying the other vital aspect of Sewage Treatment Plants (STP) – half of the city’s used water remains untreated. This water, if treated, can be reused for other purposes — signifying that the city has a prospect for wastewater treatment and its reuse. The city has recognised this potential, albeit, as a substitute for industrial demand – the current plan for establishing a new sewage network in the remaining half of the city brings in a new pattern of involving industries as stakeholders in these new treatment plants. So here, the treated water which traditionally entered the ocean – will now be used for industrial purposes. This policy clearly bypasses the idea of providing treated wastewater for agricultural purposes to those surrounding water-deficit villages in the district.   


Rain (& Rainwater) as an asset, yet as a dream


Before assessing the potential of rainwater harvesting, it is important to understand the pattern of rainfall in the city. The figure below shows the rainfall in the city over the past five years. The city averages more than 1000 mm of rainfall every year and the months which receive maximum amounts of rainfall are included below in the figure. Yet harvesting this resource is hugely inadequate. The stormwater management system of the city (only two out of fourteen proposed stormwater structures are in implementation). Most of the stormwater collected enters directly into the ocean – with few takers like Vizag Port, according to an official from GVMC. This approach clearly illustrates the limited focus awarded to this idea by the authorities – despite rainwater harvesting being a part of the city's building code. Converting rainwater into a strength requires a lot of will – both social and political. So far now, the idea is still a distant dream. 



The social scenario: A city which is yet to become a destiny

The crux of this article is to put the scenario of water at the centre of the social situation of the city. As mentioned at the beginning, the city is surrounded with some social complexities. No city is equal — whether looked through economic or social context. The city of Vizag is not immune to such inequality. The figure below displays the growth of the city — both in terms of population and area since independence. Increase in the population of the city also stipulates a growing number of people living inside informal areas. Current definition of the word “slum” places 45% of the households in the city as “households in slums.” Every surplus is a scarcity in such areas. The irregular expansion and settlements being established in regions where land use patterns are tough to regulate make things even dire especially when we try to ensure water access. 



There is a discord that exists between current water policy and the present social policy of the city. At one point the authorities are striving to ensure 24*7 water access and realise ideas such as completing Polavaram; and on the other side, there are regions where provision of tankers still persists where even storage of water is considered a privilege. All the solutions we find to “fix” the problem of water access — enhancing local resources, recharging depleting lakes, embracing sustainable alternatives like Rainwater — can only be realised when we recognise the real problem – acknowledging social realities. Providing the mandated basic amenities in areas where water availability is still a dream, and it would require much more effort to become a reality.  Collaboration and compassion is where the seeds of progress emerge, and it’s when answers could become solutions.









Friday 17 September 2021

What does it mean for a city to be resilient?

Cities are complex geographies. Within a relatively small area, you have some of the richest citizens living in posh villas juxtaposed with the urban poor that lack access to basic amenities. Some of the highest earning businesses are housed within feet of daily wage labourers. Areas with high biodiversity adjacent to slums and degraded landscapes. The contrasts are jarring and a-plenty, which makes for a complex public policy problem.  

It can be tempting to isolate these contrasting features and study them separately, in fact this has been the status quo for decades. We now know that all these systems are highly interconnected. The revenue earning business cannot function without the daily wage worker. Similarly, the daily wage worker will not have jobs in the city if not for an initial capital investment by the large business. This small feedback loop connects to the housing sector. Villas will not be built if not for rich business people in the IT sector, and its construction depends on the labourers. Finally, all these socio-economic systems ultimately depend on the ecology of the city. Rainfall in the catchment area of the Cauvery basin supplies the KRS reservoir which serves at least 50% or more of the city. Additionally, the aquifers that supply the rest 50% of the city with groundwater is dependent on multiple ecological variables - rainfall, wetlands and lakes, hydraulic gradient etc to name a few. 


It then follows that to understand water, one needs to understand how it is interconnected with the social and economic world. Resilience thinking has lately been gathering momentum in order to bridge the economic, social and environmental spheres to see it as one coherent system. Its genesis is traced back to engineers in the 1800's who were trying to understand how much disturbance a material can endure before it breaks. Other disciplines started to take note of the idea of resilience as a metaphor and started using it within their own disciplines. Psychologists used resilience to understand how one can bounce back from a negative emotional experience. Ecologists used it to understand how ecological systems such as a rainforest can absorb and recover from a shock. Resilience is now widely being used within the social sciences to understand societal problems such as poverty alleviation, development and so on. Therefore, resilience as a concept can be used to bridge the gaps between the social and natural sciences and view systems as a whole. 


While I have demonstrated the use of resilience in a few disciplines, I have not actually explained the concept to any satisfactory degree. I shall do so below. 


Fig 1 demonstrates the concept of resilience via a simple ball and trough diagram. State 1 and State 2 are two systems- let us think of them as a rainforest (State 1) and a savannah (State 2). Resilience is the ability of this rainforest to absorb shocks and yet remain within the state 1 trough, i.e remain as a rainforest. Let’s imagine that the rainforest faces a shock in the form of deforestation. In all likelihood the rainforest will not completely collapse but will start to heal itself. The degraded patch of land will in time re-grow its trees and shrubs that were once part of the forest and will eventually be restored to a rainforest. The question we now ask is - how much destruction (shocks) can this rainforest take before it is not able to heal itself and return to being a rainforest. There exists a threshold level as indicated by the peak in Fig 1, once crossed, the rainforest is lost, and changes to another system, perhaps a grassland/savannah represented by state 2. This threshold is often termed as the ‘tipping point’. This ecological example can be extended to society, the economy and polity, as we shall see below. 


Fig 1

The ball represents a system. Nudging the ball within the basins represent disturbances to the system. 
Source: Morelli and Tryjanowski 2016

Environmental Resilience: 


Bangalore is second only to Chennai in implementing rain water harvesting within its city limits. Using rain water reduces the demand on Cauvery water that comes from 100 km away at a huge ecological and environmental cost. The energy to bring Cauvery water is via non-renewables and hence, the entire Cauvery project is unsustainable (energy wise). Secondly, closely tied to rain water harvesting is the adoption of recharge wells through the city. This nature based solution serves the purpose of directing rain water overflow from houses and/or from storm water drains into wells that recharge the aquifer. The health of the aquifer is improved and will serve as a viable source of water through all seasons. Thirdly, a few lakes in Bangalore have an attached constructed wetland at the site of the inputs to the lake. The wetland treats the primary or secondary treated wastewater which can then flow into the lake. These lakes serve as incredible biodiversity hotspots as often remarked by birding enthusiasts across Bangalore. One of the impacts of climate change in urban areas will be the unpredictability of rainfall. With a constant input of treated used water into the lake, a certain level of water can be maintained throughout the year. Finally, following from the previous point, much of our treated used water is sent to the hinterlands around Bangalore which are drought prone agricultural belts. Bangalore is fed due to these regions and as a city we have an obligation towards our farmers. The used water is allowed to infiltrate into the soil and be used as groundwater for agriculture. 

Using these examples we see that in the case of an environmental shock (there will be a fare share considering climate change), we will still have water to drink if we collect the rain, the lakes will not completely dry up in the case in case of a draught (due to the treated used water inputs), and environmental shocks to the hinterland will be dampened to some extent by the supply of treated water supply from the city. 


Economic Resilience: 


I shall try to tease out economic resilience by understanding it to be the ability of the city to recover from an economic shock (financial crash, demonetisation, inflation etc). An economic shock should not imply that you cannot access the basic necessities to a dignified life, water being one of the main components. The BWSSB in its policies have invoked a ‘pro-poor’ water policy that has largely subsidised connection charges (connections charges are often the biggest financial barrier to piped water connections) to residents in slums. Secondly, the usage of rain water harvesting and recharge wells by citizens reduces their water tariffs. Biome has proven that rainwater is the cheapest source of water even considering the initial capital investments. The citizen now saves that money which would have otherwise been used to pay the Cauvery water bill. Finally, the construction of recharge wells is done by a traditional well digging community that lost their livelihood when bore wells became the norm. By constructing more recharge wells we are supporting the livelihoods of this traditional community. 

Therefore, economic resilience is built by helping the citizenry save money that would have otherwise been used for connection charges, water tariffs etc. Meaningful livelihoods are promoted by employing traditional well diggers. 


Social Resilience: 


The word ‘social’ here implies cultural and religious as well. A city is not just a physical space that one lives and works in, but citizens have an emotional and spiritual connection to it. These aspects to a city life are often overlooked in many urban discourses where planners and engineers dominate. A positive step in the right direction especially with regard to water is the nature in which lake conservation has been happening in our city. The citizens of the city are well aware that the state does not have the capacity to revive these lakes in any satisfactory manner, if the state were to work alone. Hence, citizens formed groups that would articulate what the stakeholders of the lake actually wanted and work with the government to meet some sort of a compromise. Most times, these groups did involve marginalised stakeholders whose needs are often forgotten. There are more values one derives from a lake than mere utility. It is a spiritual place for many, religious ceremonies are often conducted on its banks. It is a social place to ‘hang out’. All of these aspects contribute towards building social resilience - the ability of a society to recover from a shock and continue to derive social, cultural and religious benefits from the natural world. This ensures that the governance of the lake does not lie only with the state but with the citizens as well. 


Political Resilience:   


The concept of political resilience was brought up at a recent interns discussion with the Biome team. The question was - do we want the governance of water to be completely controlled by the state? Essentially all water would be supplied by the state and they would have a complete monopoly. Hopefully our discussion about resilience in the preceding sections should already give you an inkling that this is a bad idea. On the flip side an argument can be made as Mr Viswanath did, that having a completely decentralised system of water supply might not be as efficient as having one body (the state) controlling all water supply. This is true. However, we need to ask ourselves what sort of efficiency we want. Is the highest efficiency always desirable in all situations? Economists and engineers would cross their hearts and tell you so. But in matters of governance, it is much more nuanced. I would argue that the added effort needed in organising citizen efforts, investing in your rain water harvesting set up, digging a recharge well in your compound, contributing towards lake rejuvenation and taking governance into your own hands, while being less ‘efficient’, brings you closer to the sacredness of water. You will hopefully start to place a value on water that cannot be captured monetarily. This is where we need to be. Water is a shared substance not just between humans but all life on earth. Our values that we place on water must be congruent with the natural world.


In conclusion, Bangalore is a city that is exhibiting resilience in many spheres. We have a long way to go, but we certainly seem to have a toe-nail in the right direction. As we’ve been seeing the climate change related catastrophes this year has brought, the topic of resilience should be at the forefront. While we previously adhered to engineering and scientific rules to make water work for us, we will now have to use our knowledge to learn to live under nature’s rules and adapt to water. Adopting resilience thinking into ongoing urban discourses will steer water policy in this direction and would hopefully acknowledge the multi-dimensionality and interconnectedness of water.



References: 


Morelli, F., & Tryjanowski, P. (2016). The dark side of the “redundancy hypothesis” and ecosystem assessment. Ecological Complexity, 28, 222–229. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecocom.2016.07.005 


Sahil Regi Mathew

Tuesday 14 September 2021

The City of Oranges and its water woes

Water shortages, wastewater disposal, unequal distribution of water within the city, leakage and thefts are some of many water related issues the city of Nagpur has been facing since the past few years. This implies that there is a need to think of new ways to tackle these issues which should not only be sustainable but inclusive and reliable. 

In Nagpur, an average sized household can harvest up to 1 lakh litres of  rainwater annually, considering the area of terrace to be 1200-1400 sq ft  and average annual rainfall to be 1064 mm. Which is quiet enough to cater yearly drinking water needs for a family of four. Adding to this, if we consider the idea of recharging the open wells which are in dire state in the city, the amount of water harvested would be a supplement, not only for household purposes but for groundwater recharge. 


The idea of harvesting rainwater is not new… the city’s law mandates all the structures  having an area of certain sq.m, and above, to have their own rainwater harvesting systems. The tax incentives are also given to the citizens in the form of some concession on property tax. But the enthusiasm of citizens and the city's corporation remains passive towards it. One reason for this could be the decision of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) to involve private players in the city’s water supply system, as promoting such sustainable ways of saving up water could impact their revenue. 


Water & Nagpur, the present  

Nagpur gets  maximum of its supplied water from Pench reservoir with Kanhan river contributing for certain requirements. The city requires 670 MLD of water and creates 550 MLD of waste water. NMC is responsible for the city's water supply. It roped in Orange city waters (OCW) a private player to handle the water supply in 2011 making it a Public Private Partnership (PPP)  venture. Nagpur was one of the first cities in India to have a PPP to handle the city's overall water supply. Various politicians and bureaucrats pushed for this idea of privatisation, but some experts, like journalist Nivedita Khandekar who writes extensively on environment related issues, condemned the idea of privatising a public good like water.


City’s wastewater is discharged into the Nag river, which has become an open sewer and a source of various kinds of pollution. Not to mention this is the same river the city was named after – when the river enabled this area to urbanise. NMC is also planning to involve private players in the Wastewater treatment system of the city. Presently the water treated by public Sewage Treatment Plants (STP) is sold to Thermal Power Plants (TPPs) around the city at a minuscule price. This idea was finalised by keeping a nexus approach in plan where one industry's waste becomes another industry’s raw material. But the fly ash generated from these TPPs is being discharged into Kanhan river, polluting the same source it is indirectly getting its water from, this, along with the already discharged untreated wastewater from Nag river, makes the water from Kanhan unfit for downstream users.


Water pollution is an issue the city has been facing, where TPPs, dumping yards and untreated wastewater flowing through open sewerages  contribute majorly towards both surface water and groundwater pollution. Urban Sprawl has reduced the distance between residential areas, dumping yards, and TPPs. People are getting more vulnerable towards health diseases caused by pollution. The untreated wastewater which is being discharged into the Kanhan river is used by the downstream farmers for irrigation purposes. According to architect Pradyumna Sahasrabhojanee who is working on sustainable architecture, though use of the city's wastewater by the farmers for irrigation was part of Nagpur's master plans, its safety aspects if considered today, are under question - as the toxins may enter the farm produce and human bodies consuming it.  


Water & Nagpur, issues involved… 


The water needs of the city have been increasing since decades, taking up irrigation allocations from the Pench Irrigation Project. The present capacity of Sewage Treatment Plants is way less than required. There are a plethora of issues and we need a sustainable way out before the situation worsens. All the issues are interlinked, hence the solutions should be collaborative and inclusive. Water is one of the components which decide a city's growth – social and economic. Some ways of ensuring sustainability, especially in an urban setting are Rainwater Harvesting  and Treatment of wastewater. 


Learning from the case study mentioned above, it can be stated that if rainwater is collected and utilised properly by the citizens as well as the authorities, it has a tremendous potential to be an asset – considering that Nagpur receives an adequate amount of rainfall. Decentralisation of wastewater treatment plants is another solution: which involves establishing STPs on block level or household level so that the water reaching the main sewer will always be clean. The idea is also sought after by experts to improve the quality of water flowing in the sewers, this water can be reused for purposes like watering public parks, fire stations, public toilets etc. This in turn would reduce the chances of groundwater pollution caused by wastewater flowing through sewers and would also add recreational value to Nag river and its other tributaries which have lost their glory with increasing urbanisation. 

Leakage in pipeline to city


There are issues and there are solutions – and these are right in front of us. They aren't complicated or hard to implement, still they face various political and bureaucratic hurdles. Understanding sustainable alternatives isn't Rocket Science. It all begins with a change – behavioural or policy. Which are often easy, yet difficult to bring in.



Water theft - taking water from the underground supply line



CASE STUDY 


The following numbers reflect my experience with the exercise I did during last summer, calculating the area of  my roof top and well and finding out the amount of rainwater we could be harvesting annually through our terrace and open well, considering the average annual rainfall to be 1064 mm.  The result says the average amount of water harvested by these two structures could be around 1 lakh litres per year and total annual water needs (including drinking and domestic) of my family of four is around 3 lakh litres as per the calculations. 


This study helped me  realise that 1/3rd of my family’s  water needs can be catered from the annual rainwater we receive. This idea is not only going to be a kind of economic substitute for the way we use our resources to fetch water but an excellent ecological initiative.








Vrushali Gaurkar, Nagpur



Monday 13 September 2021

3 Issues, 2 Cities and 1 Reality

Over the past two months we spent a large chunk of time studying the water scenario — how the entire system of urban water supply is being operated out in two cities — Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) and Nagpur (Maharashtra) and what could be the scope of alternate and sustainable water resources in substituting the traditional way of consumption. We were not looking for an obvious answer, we were just trying to apply what we were taught in our course to what we’re going to learn in the coming months and to get an idea of the picture on how the system is in place in both the cities. More than an experience, the couple of months were a reflection — which changed the way we look at the reality which is in front of us and how we live in a web of complexities, and why the solution does not just lie in a policy or a technology but should be accompanied by compassion and a social way of thinking. 


The article tries to focus on three particular issues: Surface water and how the authorities see large infrastructure projects as a solution to tackle water access issue — for both present as well as for the future; Increasing water disparities across various sectors: Rural, urban and industries; meagre priority given to adapt sustainable alternate measures. All the issues lead to a realisation — on the way the urban structure is in place not only in these two focus cities but in the entire country where similar kinds of issues continue to persist and similar kinds of solutions are sought after. 


Issues and equivalences 


The two cities have different geographies. One situated along the east coast sandwiched between Eastern Ghats and the Bay of Bengal and the other at the centre of the country located near beguiling tiger and natural reserves. Both the cities serve as a lifeline to the people in the regions they’re present in — Uttarandhra and Vidarbha. Despite being located in different geographies and governed by different administrations, the issues which persist — especially in the province of water — remain similar and identical. Both the municipalities look at some large dams and reservoirs to cater the consumption needs of residents. For both, major sources of water have been  Pench reservoir and Kanhan River for Nagpur; Yeleru, Raiwada, and Mehadrigedda reservoirs for Vizag.  Along with various other minor sources. These structures cater needs for present, while for future ideas like Polavaram and Kochi barrage are projected as solutions for increasing water demand in these spaces.


The two cities are vastly industrialised. Industries are in fact gadgets which clear the way for greater economic growth. The point here is that the governments chew over these as panaceas of every economic issue the regions have been facing. Here, for many, industries define identity. That’s the perception which is present far and wide exhaustively. For Heavy industries — just like the environment — water is the cornerstone. The administrations rightly recognise this conventional fact. They award massive priority to ensure these units get the desired water they call for. This  priority comes with a trade-off and a cost. Both the cities are surrounded with hinterlands which are extremely water stressed. In an ideal world the authorities would come up with a win-win game plan. In practise, the rural regions are always on the losing side — where the water which should be provided to them end up in sacrifice to the growing production units in and around these cities. This is leading to a ripple effect where they look for alternate sources of water — like groundwater — which is resulting in exploitation of aquifers.  


American activist Annie Leonard once famously said “there is no such thing as ‘away’. When we throw anything away it must go somewhere”. This aptly describes the picture in both the cities where around 80% of the water received by any city turns into sewage, and most of this is left to enter into the ocean or into the nearby rivers through drains, a certain amount of this sewage water is treated and sold to industries generating revenue to the local water departments. Still a lot of untreated sewage water is discharged into drains and ocean, befouling the ecosystem.  


The rainfall is the strength for both the cities, which exceed the national average every year. Despite getting enough rainfall, sustainable mediums like rainwater harvesting and aquifer recharge are not being compelled prudently. The rain water mostly flows into the drains and to the sea with no precise beneficiary of the resource. The law mandates both the cities as part of building codes to install structures which harvest rainwater but its enforcement is still a distant dream. They offer certain incentives – like small relief on annual property tax of the household, but the outcome of these kinds of incentives is under debate. Methods like harvesting rainwater, decentralised sewage treatment plants are considered as low hanging fruits which can be employed and harnessed, but impassiveness of the authorities towards decentralised and sustainable solutions makes it too difficult to turn them into a reality. 


Unconventional as endeavour


Cities follow a pattern: Depend on a convention, modify the convention and portray a new convention. We tend to see the structures we constructed decades ago, as the retrievers of water access. They do justify the mandate. At the same time when urbanisation is blistering, water consumption is a directly proportional factor. It needs — along with conventional way of thinking — a new way of fostering which doesn’t have to be a reinvention of the wheel. It's not like two expanding cities are following a particular approach and face certain identical issues, but it is realisation of a method which is a reflection on the way we chose to urbanise — with winners and losers. Water falling in the latter.   


Fixing this wheel is indeed a challenge, because some subjects go beyond public matters, they involve complex and multidisciplinary facets — social, politics, environment and finance — water fits well into these. The nature of this resource as a basic need makes it prone to various contentions. There is no such city which is immune to such contentions, thereby finding a holistic solution to water related obstacles and conflicts become complicated. The alternate sustainable measures advocated have the potential to turn out as assets. Like a simple formula solving a complex quadratic problem — harnessing the water from rain and its storage, proper treatment of  the generated sewage and improvement in operation and maintenance of current water infrastructure  in place — can act as a medium to tackle the crisis. The kind of hurdles both these cities face are the same in every urban scene in the country. It is the unconventional way of thinking which has the way out. 


Vrushali Gaurkar (Nagpur)

Vamsi Krishna (Vishakhapatnam)