Mr. S. Masood Husain

Chairman, Central Water Commission, Ministry of Water Resources

RD & GR, Govt. of India

Water is a national resource; and there is no alternative to water. Being a highly populous country, India has a large need for water. To put out some statistics, India contains about 18 percent of the World Population, with only 4 percent of water resources. Irrigation is the largest consumer of water and with increasing population, growing agriculture, rapid industrialization & urbanization, it is critical for India to handle the challenge.

H.E. Dr. Rashid Alleem

Chairman

Sharjah Electricity & Water Authority

The primitive step of managing water crisis starts with awareness and how we can educate ourselves about the sustainability of water maintenance.UN has come up with good aid-goals to change the face of the world and to take into the path of prosperity in a way that profits. If we want a better tomorrow and want to be sustainable, let us give ourselves an objective and bring business on the table.

H.E. Mr. Carlos Pereira Marques

Ambassador of Portugal in India

Embassy of Portugal

The world population will reach 10 billion by 2050 with more than 80 per cent of population residing in urban areas. The demand of water will continue to increase from all sectors and the effects of climate change on water cycle would be more obvious every year with increasing risks of floods and draughts. By 2030, half of the world will face high water scarcity though the scale may vary. In fact we need to understand that while addressing this challenge, we need to adopt an approach that ensures proficient management & sustainable provision of water for all users at affordable price with smart assistance by the Governments.

Ms. T Rajeshwari

Additional. Secretary, Minister for Water Resources

RD & GR, Government of India

As per international norms, a place is water stressed if per capita water availability is less than 1700 cubic meter and water scarce if it stands at 1000 cubic meter. Depending on topography and hydrological factors, many areas in India are either water stressed or water scarce and there is alarming need for sustainable management of water resources due to increasing population, urbanization and industrialization.

Mr. Suryam Kashibhatla

Vice President, Centre of Excellence (Water)

Reliance Industries Limited

While we are heavily concerned on the scarcity of water, 97% of water is the sea water, 2% is in the form of glaciers, and around 1% is available as the fresh water. Out of this, 1% fresh water, half is the ground water and half is the surface water. It is only the surface water that is available to us for our all the requirements. All three major water consumers, farming, industry & municipalities co-exist, are co-dependent and have conflicting interests. So, the prime focus is on: how do we manage water.

Mr. Satyajit Chakraborty

Divisional Manager, Water Management

JTO, Jamshedpur

JUSCO has a phase-wise movement towards zero liquid discharge plan. At the initial stage, in one of our sewage treatment plants, with working capacity of 10 million liters per day, we are totally recycling the water for use in horticulture, industries and also for domestic purposes. We have been able to reduce the intake of raw water from river to a great extent. In Jamshedpur more than 70 million liters of water is being recharged and more than 7 million liters of water is being reused per year.

Ms. Deeya Ray

Manager (Sewage Treatment Plant)

Jamshedpur Utilities and Services Company Limited

Jamshedpur is a town where people can drink water straight from the tap. Apart from maintaining the quality, we also take care of water-losses which are minimal. We work at the individual and institutional levels to reduce water consumption and maintain the benchmark of 12.36 % of NRW which is the best in India. We have established water loss management system to take care of physical and commercial losses. Physical loss management includes treatment works, and arresting leakages through service-reservoir-management and distribution system management. We have segregated entire area as District Metered Areas (DMA) to monitor commercial losses. Commercial loss management system includes proper metering & billing of consumer connections and disconnection of any illegal connections.

Mr. Sourav Daspatnaik

Chief Executive Officer

Swach Environment Pvt. Ltd.

As far as water security is concerned, to meet the industrial demand, dependency on primary water needs to be reduced due to competing demand from household segment. Reuse of treated wastewater is getting strong support from Government, adding a revenue generating water reuse component to the projects boosts the financial viability of project. In the long-term shift towards covering operating costs through user fees also reduces the burden on public finances.

Ms. Alexandra Serra

Executive Board Member

Aguas De Portugal International S.A.

Tagus Estuary river basin contributes immensely to the ecological and economic development of Spain & Portugal. However, the concentration of densely urbanized areas and industrial clusters in the region had resulted in environmental degradation. A world exhibition in Lisbon in the year 1998 was the primitive trigger to start with this clean-up project which was a combined effort of multiple entities and strong commitment from Central Government and Municipality to work together.

Mr. Claes Tigerstrand

Senior Technical Manager, Head of Region South

Europe, Outokumpu

Most of the available water is sea water and fresh water is a scarce resource, however it has been taken for granted. In order to treat the sea water to make it usable and treat its chlorides it is critical to select the right stainless steel which should be a very high alloy material for desalination ventilation systems.

Lt. Col. Suresh Patil

Green Thumb Environment

Protection Group

Since last 10 years water management has become a pertinent problem. Rain is very kind at many of the areas in India, and the nature’s cycle is close to perfect there. In that situation, the most relatable question is: Why are we failing in that case? In spite of adequate rainfall, in many of the places, water is either stressed or scarce due to poor water management. In our country , major portion of rain water gets wasted, unlike developed countries where it is the other way round .

Mr. M. K. Srinivas

Director General

National Water Development Agency

Technological intervention is very important for urban water management due to limited availability of this resource. To derive maximum benefit, we need to adopt the approach to move from waste to wealth. One of the prime initiatives taken up by our Government in this direction under the Clean Ganga Mission is the hybrid annuity model of collecting all the sewage water in one place and putting in the treatment plant and not discharge directly in the river.

Mr. Shanesh Joshi

Head – Project Development Unit, Western Region

TATA Projects Limited

Apart from ground water, surface water is also the major source of water of the country today. While we have so much of water-stress already, we have been ignorant to save or conserve our rivers. But, with increasing urbanization most of our major cities situated at the bank of rivers have been polluted as a good amount of untreated sewage is being dumped into the river.

Mr. Ajay Girotra

Managing Director

AG Dauters Waste Processing Private Limited

Grey water holds the key to the future survival of the mankind. At the moment, India produces 62000 MLD of grey water in the urban areas out of which only 18883 MLD is treated.The rest of untreated grey water is not fit to drink but can be treated to produce 31000 MLD of mineral water or produce 24000 MLD of fuel.

Mr. Matiur Rahaman

Associate Director, Business Development

IoT& Mobility Solutions, TATA Communications

According to UN ,about 25% of global population will face water scarcity by 2025 which means, one out of four individuals will face this problem. In India, we are losing close to 200 thousand lives year on year. Further, NitiAyog report cites that about 21 cities will either go dry or go under water. Water challenge is global in nature and many technological interventions are available to measure water usage, monitor water quality & manage leakages in distribution systems.