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Pune: The Maharashtra government has given its approval to upgrade six of nine sewage treatment plants (STP) operated by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) with a budget of ₹497 crore, as these units need to bring down the biological oxygen demand (BOD) levels from 30 ml to 10 ml as stipulated by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) criteria.
However, due to its inherent centralised and large-scale operability and maintenance, the efficiency of these STPs is questioned. One of the solutions to prevent releasing untreated sewage into water bodies within and outside cities is decentralisation of wastewater treatment process. A Pune-based startup JalSevak Solutions, founded by Abhijit Sathe, has developed greywater recycling solution for residential and commercial facilities. JalSevak helps in reusing greywater from bathrooms, sinks and washing machines resulting in saving up to 40 per cent fresh water for households.
Precious thought
Raised in the drought-prone city Solapur, Abhijit had never heard of 24×7 water supply till he travelled to other cities and countries. He did his bachelor of mechanical engineering from Walchand College of Engineering, Sangli in 1999 and masters in the subject from IIT Madras in 2001. After working in Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) for three years, Abhijit decided to pursue his PhD in mechanical engineering from Purdue University (US) in 2004.
Abhijit said, “After my doctorate, I worked in the US till 2012 and returned to India. I landed a job at a Mumbai-based startup in geothermal energy sector. After working for a couple of years, I decided to quit job and start my own venture. I was not sure of the industry I would work in, but water conservation as a concept was always in my mind. I read about Israel’s advanced water treatment technologies. The concept pushed me to do something in the water treatment and recycling domain. Initially I researched on rainwater harvesting, but soon realised that there is no innovation or technology challenge there. On further study, I noticed that grey water — domestic wastewater drained from household sinks, showers, bathtubs, and washing machines — is not reused and released in sewage pipelines. As a result, this water needs to be treated in large-scale STPs built and operated by the civic bodies.”
“Huge STPs having capacity of processing million litres of water per day are good for big societies or factories but for individuals or small societies, restaurants, commercial complexes they are unfeasible. Some solutions do exist for small capacity treatment plants, but those are created for the US or Europe markets and may not be suitable for Indian consumers considering the pricing and design of the product. Individuals are becoming aware of recycling and reusing grey water and looking for low-cost, customised solutions for water treatment within their house or societies,” he said.
Pilot
Abhijit moved to IIT Kanpur where he worked at the incubation centre as well as registered and incubated his company in 2018. He met Sharad Gupta, a civil engineer from Kanpur, who later became the chief operating officer (COO) at JalSevak.
Abhijit said, “We started working on the idea for recycling grey water. We made a prototype at the IIT Kanpur laboratory and carried out several experiments. Initially we faced a lot of challenges in removing the contaminants and treating the water. IIT Kanpur had provided us with a funding of ₹22 lakh through various schemes and grants which helped us develop and test our product for three years. We also did a pilot project at the Jai Narayan High School where we installed our unit with tanks and filter. We also developed our website and were getting attention from people, especially house owners from southern parts of the country who wanted to install our unit.”
“We started commissioning projects across different states, including our first-ever installation at the Air Force Administrative College in Coimbatore. It was for an officer’s hostel and the reused water was to be used for their sports facility. However, since our product was new, there were a lot of hitches with the filter, contaminant separation, etc. All these problems were not foreseen during our lab experiments and hence we had to improvise our product a lot. Later, we did more such projects like at a boy’s hostel for underprivileged students in Delhi NCR that benefited 40 students.
Similarly, in Bengaluru, we installed one unit in a low-cost housing scheme at a slum; and another unit at a public toilet in Gorakhpur. Since our unit does not require special skills or trained personnel for day-to-day maintenance like cleaning filters or filling liquid chemicals, etc it could be easily implemented and adopted at such places,” he said.
Shifting base
Abhijit and Sharad decided to shift their base down south to Pune city in June 2021. The duo says their move was prompted due to lack of awareness and urgency in the northern parts of country to tackle the water recycling issue.
Abhijit said, “We had set up our plant in Kothrud and operated for about a year. Most of our suppliers for sheet metal and piping were in Narhe-Ambegaon area, so we decided to shift our factory in the Narhe industrial zone. It helped us reduce cost as well as improve our planning and order fulfilment.”
“After we moved to Pune, we got one project from the Yashwantrao Chavan Memorial Committee in Pimpri-Chinchwad. It is a 25,000 litre per day capacity unit installation which is underway. Another organisation, Vidyarthi Sahayyak Samiti, is constructing hostels for students where we have proposed our water treatment solutions. We have presented our solutions to the Marathi Bandhkam Vyavasayik Association (MBVA) who would benefit in terms of costing, land utilisation, operations, and maintenance. We have not implemented any proprietary technology where users will be dependent on us for repair or maintenance. It was possible for us to earn recurring revenue from it, but keeping the social impact perspective in mind, we decided to not go for it,” he said.
Technology
Explaining how the greywater is processed, Abhijit said, “The wastewater from kitchen or washing machines needs to be filtered. Two filters, primary and secondary, are used to removed solid particles or contaminants, up to 15 microns. For the filteration, no RO (reverse osmosis) or any other biological treatment is done. Using gravity to maintain flow from filters to storage tank, the processed water is then aerated. Aeration is done to bring the biological oxygen demand (BOD) levels down which means the biological or bacterial content in the water is reduced. If water is stagnant in the storage tank, then the BOD level may increase, resulting in bad odour and colouration, which is not desirable. Thereafter, the water is treated with liquid chlorine using a small dosing pump to extend its shelf life by 48 hours. This is done because grey water may contain negligent bacterial strains and small dose of 5 mg of liquid chlorine per litre of water is needed to treat it. In the final stage, the tertiary filter which is activated carbon filters is used to absorb the extra chlorine and hardness in water. The processed water is then stored in tank and can be further used in garden or washing purpose.”
Decentralised water treatment
Emphasising that large STPs and JalSevak’s solutions are different, Abhijit said, “Our product unit has maximum capacity of processing 25,000 litres per day. If any establishment requires a larger quantity of water to be processed, we install additional units as per requirement. For example, an individual household requirement for 5-6 persons is 500 to 1,000 litres water treatment. JalSevak’s unit cost would be around ₹1 lakh for the small unit. As the capacity requirement goes up, the unit cost would reduce. For individual customers’ benefit, we try to reduce the cost by customising the unit and sourcing raw material or parts from the customers.
Go-to-market strategy
Abhijit said, “Initially we had focussed more on individual installations which takes more time to convert. However, we have changed our strategy and look for IT companies, commercial establishments, and hospitality industry. They can recycle up to 40 per cent of greywater. With environment, social and corporate governance gaining importance, small industries will have to rethink their strategy and practices. JalSevak’s low-cost solutions will be a good fit for them and hence we are approaching different business organisations and industry bodies to create awareness in small industries.”
Expansion plans
Sharing his immediate and long-term plans, Abhijit said, “Indian market and consumers are very price sensitive. Hence, we are continuously trying to reduce the cost of our product. Since we will never get into manufacturing of filters, we are finding alternative suppliers, vendors and looking for any technology that can be used at any stage. We will be targeting the car washing industry, IT companies (canteens), co-working spaces, offices, commercial establishments, and roadside hotels, dhabas. We are in the process of designing a product for each of these industries. We are also collaborating with certain organisations who are providing vandal-free public toilets made from stainless steel. We are working with them to process and reuse water used for floor cleaning and hand washing. The basic trial is completed, and we will soon launch this product too.”
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