Minister of State for the Ministry of Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, Y.S. Chowdary, chaired the inaugural session of the Review and Planning Meeting on the completion of 4 years of the € 9 million Indo-EU ‘Water4crops’ project in New Delhi.
The project has been co-funded by Government of India through the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) under the Ministry of Science & Technology and the European Union.
The project integrates bio-treated wastewater reuse with enhanced water-use efficiency to support the Green Economy in EU and India.
The rationale behind developing Decentralized Wastewater Treatment (DWT) is water scarcity. On one hand, direct use of wastewater in agriculture is not good for farmers and consumers and on the other, disposal of untreated wastewater pollutes the environment. Moreover, all localities do not have sewage treatment plants.
Hence the ‘Water4Crops’ project provides an opportunity to efficiently utilize low-quality industrial, domestic and municipal wastewater by facilitating the development of various technologies for wastewater treatment at the local scale and its feasible use in agriculture.
Based on pilot studies at ICRISAT headquarters in Hyderabad and elsewhere, several watersheds have been supported under the Government of Karnataka’s Bhoo Samrudhi and Rythu Kosam programmes and by some Corporates under their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes.
The Decentralized Wastewater Treatment (DWT) approach is being implemented and popularized at 28 sites in the Indian states of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and Karnataka.