To find alternative solutions to meet the demand for drinking water, Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) is likely to sign an agreement with Singapore Cooperation Enterprise and Temasek Foundation on Tuesday.
The partnership is to share Singapore’s experience in planning and designing of recycle and reuse of treated sewage/waste water. With water experts warning possible famine hitting Bangalore by 2020, the board has come forward to finding out alternatives and the MoU is one such step.
At present, the BWSSB is supplying about 900 million litres of water a day from Cauvery River in four stages. The supply will be augmented by 500 MLD through Cauvery fourth stage second Phase. It will be the final project in the Cauvery basin according to the Cauvery Water Tribunal Agreement.
On condition of anonymity, a BWSSB chief engineer told Express, “In Singapore, the waste/sewage is treated and purified with micro filtration, reverse osmosis and ultraviolet technologies. After dual-membrane filtration process, the purified water becomes portable and it is used for drinking. The same water is also supplied to industries which require high purity water.”
In this model, treated water is channelised to the source of the drinking water from where it is pumped into the city and supplied.
According to the agreement, BWSSB along with the expertise from Singapore, will look upon what things can be done here, said the chief engineer.
He added that the board cannot afford to set-up separate water lines to channelise the treated water to the residents.
Former Irrigation Secretary, Captain Raja Rao said, “Sewage is a source. With the depleting levels of ground water, there is no other go but to recycle and reuse sewage. This is one of the options to the meet demand for water. But the board has to rope in NGOs to create awareness about this as a psychological barrier exists among the public in using treated water. People should be explained that the usage of treated water is inevitable.”