Indian Politics & Policy Volume 1, Number 2, Fall 2018 | Page 102

Parameters of Successful Wastewater Reuse in Urban India
trends in water classification that are
based on location-specific supplies and
their qualities, and these classifications
may vary depending on context. 10
In west Delhi, as 125 buses enter
the depot, about 45 buses are washed
every day. The employees of this depot
are reliant on recycled wastewater to do
this cleaning. In the bus depot, employees
use four categories to define their
sources. These are: (1) potable water
treated from surface water sources and
provided by the DJB, (2) groundwater
that is not treated, (3) treated wastewater
that is piped from a decentralized
project across the street, and (4) tanker
water carrying poorly treated wastewater
from a conventional, centralized
STP across the street. Potable water is
the purest for human consumption
with degrading qualities in the other
categories. When talking in Hindi,
these employees used the English word
“pure” to describe water from the DJB.
Groundwater is preferable to treated
wastewater. In some cases, however,
employees remarked that in emergency
situations, they have had to drink this
recycled water.
Before 2016, there was only one
company that had produced a viable decentralized
pilot plant in Delhi (STPs).
This was Absolute Water, a company
spin-off from a large industrial sugar
company. The owner realized that industries
could recycle their water for
reuse and see significant savings and a
more reliable water supply. After installing
a plant in their own industry, they
convinced the DJB to let them build a
pilot project on the campus of the Keshopur
Sewage treatment facility in west
Delhi. The DJB had enough land there
to house the project. The company used
its own funds to construct the plant on
the vermiculture model that uses biomass
and earthworms to bring down
the biological content of the wastewater.
The water is then passed through a
carbon filter and a membrane to produce
near bacteria-free water that can
be considered potable quality water according
to WHO standards. The facility
is powered by a solar panel and uses 8
kW of energy to produce 100 kiloliters
of water each day. The Delhi Chief
Minister Kejriwal inaugurated the pilot
plant on July 9, 2015, with a media blitz
in which he was photographed drinking
the treated water. Absolute Water
operated the plant for a year before the
DJB agreed to assume the operation
and maintenance. Then the DJB found
a user for this product in the bus depot
across the street and laid a pipeline to
bring the treated water to them.
The definitions and categories
of water were immediately apparent in
our discussions with the employees of
the bus depot. Those working in the
bus depot have a working knowledge of
each source and a strong awareness of
the differences between the four kinds
of water they use. They are, in terms of
their own labels: DJB piped water which
comes from the water treatment plant
at Wazirabad and is used for drinking;
treated wastewater from the Keshopur
pilot plant, called “pipeline STP water”
or “Kejriwal pani”; treated wastewater
coming from the Keshopur STP called
“tanker water” and groundwater. In order
of quality, the DJB piped (drinking)
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