NEW DELHI: Delhi can learn from the success story of Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC), which has been converting 57 million litres of sewage into 40 million litres of potable drinking water daily for the past four years. The second plant with capacity to produce 35 million litres per day (MLD) will be operational early next year.TOI recently visited the Bamroli sewage treatment plant in the textile and diamond city, which supplies treated water to an industrial estate in the vicinity to meet their daily requirement. “This plant was set up on public private partnership (PPP) after taking the Pandesara industrial estate on board that they would buy the treated water and they pay the charges regularly. It’s a financially sustainable project,” said SMC deputy commissioner C Y Bhatt. The plant was set up with Rs 85 crore.Anand Vashi, director of Enviro Control Associates, which runs the plant, said the water quality is perfect for drinking. “But considering that people may feel hesitant to drink it knowing that the sewage has been treated scientifically to make it potable, supplying this water for industrial use was the best option,” Vashi said. Visitors including VIPs such as the Union housing minister Hardeep Singh Puri, who have visited the plant, have drunk the treated water.The plant uses sand filtration, ultra filtration, reverse osmosis and activated carbon filter technologies to make the water safe for drinking.SMC officials said earlier the textile and dyeing units in Pandesara Industrial Estate used the potable water for industrial purpose and a few borewells in this area were also operational to meet the daily water need. “Now because of the plant there is no diversion of drinking water for non-potable purposes. There re no tubewells and so no more depletion of ground water. Secondly, the price fixed for recycled waste water for industry is cheaper than the price SMC charged from industries for fresh water. This works as a perfect business proposition for the industries,” said an official.He added this model can be replicated in other cities and since 2014 several teams from India and abroad have visited the plant to learn about the process. “When the visitors taste the treated water from the plant, they understand how they don’t need to visit Singapore for replicating this model,” said Vasi.

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