Varanasi gets reuse action plan for treated wastewater

Varanasi has joined the list of cities with its own reuse action plan for safe reuse of treated wastewater, with the National Mission for Clean Ganga describing it as a “landmark” moment in India’s journey towards the reuse of treated wastewater.

The action plan for Varanasi was unveiled by Union Jal Shakti Minister CR Patil at the water resources secretaries’ conference in New Delhi on Monday in the presence of Minister of State for Jal Shakti Raj Bhushan Choudhary and Water Resources Secretary VL Kantha Rao. The Mission said the action plans show how the national framework on safe reuse of treated wastewater (SRTW) gets translated into ground reality.

The plans map out exactly where treated water can go, including thermal power plants, railways, urban landscaping and irrigation, matching supply from sewage treatment plants with real demand centres in each city.

“India generates approximately 72,368 million litres per day (MLD) of sewage every day from urban households. Only 44 per cent of that has treatment infrastructure, and much of what gets treated is never reused. That’s a resource going to waste, literally,” the Mission said in a post on social media.

It said the SRTW initiative is a national push to stop treating used water as waste and start treating it as “‘Apna Jal’ — Our Water”, a resource to be safely reused instead of freshwater.

The Mission said the national framework on SRTW, released in November 2022, lays the foundation through uniform quality standards, State-level policies, financing mechanisms and a shift from “treat-and-dispose” to “treat-and-reuse”.

Noting that India is the world’s 13th most water-stressed country, the Mission said groundwater is over-exploited across much of the country and “every drop of treated water reused is a drop of freshwater saved for drinking, farming and industry”.