World over, the hyper urbanisationtrend is driving demand for the safeand reliable supply of drinking water

and we see the same trend in India as well.Given the primacy of the provision of drinkingwater as a national objective and recent devel-opments in the sector in terms of policychanges and several new schemes giving animpetus to private sector participation, sub-stantial progress has been noticed in the pastthree years under the new regime. The Indiangovernment has taken several initiatives toimprove the country’s water infrastructure anddistribution system along with providing bettersanitation services.

With a renewed focus on the sector and thegovernment's serious approach, several keywater supply and sewage treatment projectswere completed in the past one year. There hasalso been a surge in the number of projectsplanned by the concerned ministries and civicagencies for execution in the near future. Theadoption of technology solutions by urban local

bodies (ULBs) to enhance service delivery hasalso been on the rise. Further, the governmenthas introduced a bill for the setting up of a sin-gle standing tribunal to resolve water-related dis-putes between states. The bill will streamline theadjudication of interstate water disputes andmake the present legal and institutional archi-tecture robust. It also proposes the introductionof a mechanism to resolve disputes amicablythrough negotiations, through a dispute resolu-tion committee to be established by the centre,consisting of relevant experts, before such dis-putes are referred to the tribunal.

Further, the centre approved the creation ofthe National Council for River Ganga (Rejuven-ation, Protection and Management) to replacethe National Ganga River Basin Authority as theoverseeing body for Ganga rejuvenation. Thecentre has also recommended the setting up ofa national water commission which will sub-sume the existing Central Water Commissionand the Central Ground Water Board.

Centrally sponsored schemes like the Smart

Cities Mission (SCM), the Atal Mission for Reju-venation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT),the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) and theNational Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), aswell as river interlinking and irrigation projectswith dedicated fund allocations have moved for-ward from the initiation and approval stage toexecution, with a significant increase in both thenumber of approved projects and the funds re-leased for their implementation.

Considerable progress has been madeunder the SCM. A total of 90 cities have beenselected so far for development under the mis-sion and have a proposed investment require-ment of Rs 1.2 trillion. The selected cities haveproposed affordable housing projects that wouldbenefit the urban poor, school and hospital pro-jects, redesigning and redevelopment of roads,public transport systems with last-mile connec-tivity, citizen-friendly governance, water and san-itation infrastructure along with integrated com-mand and control centres that enable coordina-tion among various agencies for better service

>>water and waste

10 ❘ Indian Infrastructure ❘ August 2017

Ambitious TargetsBut some roadblocks remain to be addressed

Subhash Chand Sethi, Chairman, SPML Infra Limited

delivery and effective management of scarceresources like water and power.

AMRUT is one of the key initiatives for im-proving civic infrastructure in small and bigcities. So far, the Ministry of Urban Developmenthas approved Rs 370 billion for 298 missioncities in 21 states, for the entire scheme periodup to 2019-20 (out of a total outlay of Rs 500 bil-lion). Under the scheme, investments in watersupply to ensure water taps in all urban house-holds along with ensuring the supply of 135litres per capita per day is the first priority. Layingsewerage and drainage lines is the secondthrust area and developing at least one parkevery year in each of the 500 mission cities ismandatory under AMRUT guidelines. To makethis scheme effective, the centre has given sta-tes the freedom to plan their expenditure fromfunds provided under the scheme.

Further, the SBM has seen significantprogress with 796 cities across the countrybeing declared open defecation-free. About 3.7million toilets have been constructed under themission till July 2017. Door-to-door waste col-lection activities have also been stepped up,with about 53 per cent of total wards in thecountry being reported to have 100 per centdoor-to-door collection services. Under the mission, the eSBM project, a state-of-the-artinformation and communications technology(ICT) platform which utilises web, GPS andmobile technology solutions to provide easyand effective real-time monitoring and man-agement of solid waste management with pre-cise GPS mapping of all waste collection pointsin the city, is also being executed. SPML Infra isexecuting this project to track and monitorwaste transportation in 627 cities in 12 statesand the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Till date,the technology has been developed for twostates – Odisha and Jharkhand – where ICTdevices have been installed in more than 550

waste transportation vehicles in 32 cities forreal-time monitoring of waste transportationvehicles and bin cleaning. Currently, the projectis being implemented in Bihar where 300 vehi-cles in two cities are being covered.

The central government’s Namami Gangeprogramme for improving sewerage infrastruc-ture in the country has also made considerableprogress. Till July 2017, 155 projects have beensanctioned. Of these, 39 projects have beencompleted so far. Sewage treatment capacity intowns along the river is being enhanced with aconsiderable focus on large cities along theGanga including Haridwar, Kanpur, Allahabad,Varanasi, Patna, Bhagalpur, Howrah and Kol-kata. Due to intensive monitoring and inspectionof grossly polluting industries in these cities,sewage and effluent treatment facilities havebeen enhanced, leading to considerable impro-vement in the water quality of some of the tribu-taries of the river.

ULBs across the country are actively takingup water supply and sanitation projects. Duringthe past one year, Delhi, Ahmedabad andSiddipet have implemented pilot projects for24x7 water supply. Further, 24x7 water supplyprojects for Rajkot and Pimpri-Chinchwad werealso approved. At least 320 million litres perday (mld) of sewage treatment capacity wasdeveloped over the past year. Meanwhile, atleast 420 mld of sewage treatment capacityand 403 mld of water treatment capacity isunder different stages of development acrossthe country. Besides, at least 1,275 mld ofsewage treatment and 300 mld of water treat-ment capacity will be developed in the nextthree-four years. Civic agencies are also plan-ning 24x7 water supply projects for the cities ofKochi, Kozhikode, Thiruvananthapuram,Karimnagar, Hubballi-Dharwad and Davangere.

Per capita waste generation is increasingby 1.3 per cent per annum in India. With the

rapid increase in urban population, the annualincrease of waste generated is around 5 percent. However, not much development hasbeen seen in this segment over the past threeyears except for some waste treatment plantsthat have been set up in Mumbai and Delhi (atBhalswa and Narela-Bawana). Waste process-ing plants are also planned for SulthanBathery in Kerala, Jamnagar in Gujarat, andBhandwari in Haryana.

The pace of technology adoption has alsoimproved. Water utilities are deploying advancedtechnologies and solutions like supervisory con-trol and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, digi-tal mapping, leakage detection and mobile gov-ernance to improve service delivery. In the waterand wastewater treatment segment too, newtechnologies are being adopted. Further, ULBsare also using IT systems and solutions for vari-ous aspects of waste management, includingcollection, transportation, treatment, disposal,asset mapping, network management and cus-tomer service. SPML Infra has implemented anumber of SCADA systems in its different watersupply projects in Rajasthan for effective moni-toring and control. Civic agencies in cities suchas Bengaluru, Kannur and Delhi have launchedmobile applications to address customer griev-ances regarding their services.

Sector outlookThe water and waste sector continues toreceive a significant push from the centre inthe form of new programmes, policies and re-forms. Overall, a number of big-ticket water andwaste projects have been launched by the gov-ernment. Going forward, project award couldlose momentum unless issues such as the lackof credible data systems, poor financial healthof ULBs, the lack of political support, and theinvolvement of multiple agencies are address-ed in a time-bound manner. ◗

“Given the primacy of the provision of drinking water as a national objective andrecent developments in the sector in terms of policy changes and several newschemes, giving an impetus to private sector participation, substantial progress has been noticed in the past three years under the new regime.”

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August 2017 ❘ Indian Infrastructure ❘ 11