India & Netherlands launch second phase of the LOTUS-HR

Speed Post News Network

New Delhi  : During the visit of King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Kingdom of the Netherlands a joint launch of the second phase of the Local Treatment of Urban Sewage streams for Healthy Reuse (LOTUS-HR) programme was done by Union  Science & Technology, Earth Sciences and Health & Family Welfare Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan on October 14, 2019. The launch programme was held during the visit of Netherlands King & the Queen to the India-Netherlands water laboratory at the Barapullah drain in Delhi.

Announcing the scaling up of LOTUS-HR for treatment of sewage water at a function in New Delhi, Dr Harsh Vardhan said, “Today, we are going to enter into the second phase, wherein 10,000 litre sewage water will be treated per day. Dutch and Indian companies are contributing to the project by sharing their existing technologies and will showcase how one can treat urban waste water into clean water for various purposes.  We are also in the process of emulating this in other projects across the country.”

The project was initiated in July 2017 and aims to demonstrate a novel holistic (waste) water management approach that will produce clean water which can be reused for various purposes. The innovative pilot scale modular plant on commissioning will treat 10,000 L sewage water per day and will showcase a self-sustaining model for the end user.

This pilot scale facility will employ multiple technologies so that the data generated at the pilot scale becomes a tool-box of treatment technologies for replication at other sites in Delhi as well as other parts of India where similar drains exist. The rationale is that the mixing and matching of technologies from this tool-box will depend on the quantity (flow rate) and quality (pollutant load) of drain water, land availability, site accessibility as well as topography.

The LOTUS-HR project is jointly supported by Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India, and Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research /STW, Government of Netherlands.

The Indo-Dutch collaboration aims to pave new ways to create techno entrepreneurship and encourage a sustainable business model to convert sewage water into clean water for healthy re-use. Lieutenant Governor of Delhi Anil Baijal, Principal Scientific Advisor to GoI Vijay Raghavan; Secretary, Department of Biotechnology, Renu Swarup and other dignitaries were present at the event.