Minister of State for the Ministry of Science & Technology and EarthSciences, Shri Y.S. Chowdary,today chaired the inaugural session of the Review and Planning Meeting on the completion of 4 years of the € 9 million Indo-EU ‘Water4crops’ project,to be held in New Delhi from 15th– 17th of June, 2016. 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 projectintegrates bio-treated wastewater reuse with enhanced water-use efficiency to support the GreenEconomy in EU and India.
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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.
The projecthas shown remarkable success by aiding the construction of wetlands containing plant species such as Cannaindica, lemon grass (Cymbopogon), napier (Pennisetum perpureum X Pennisetum americarnum), paragrass (Urochloa mutica), typha (Typha latifolia), water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes), water lettuce (Pistia stratiotes) and a weed species Agaratum Conyzoides. These plant species absorb harmful toxins as well as nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potash, inter alia, that contaminate the water due to overuse of chemical fertilizers in the agriculture sector.
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.
As a result of this initiative, the chemical and biological oxygen demand inwastewaters has reduced by 30-92%. Moreover, crop yield evaluations have shown increased yields of the order of 14 to 40% for crops like okra, brinjal and chilly irrigated with treated wastewater as comparedto fresh water. In addition to increased yields, the secondary treatment of waste water for agriculture leads to more tertiary-treated potable water beingavailable for domestic use.
Shri Y.S. Chowdary, speaking at the inaugural session, noted that water is clearly a worldwide challenge today and if a Third World War ever happens, it would be for water. Hence, its management requires new approaches and technologies. He highlighted the importance of treated wastewater for addressing theissues of sanitation and health in rural areas as well as meeting the demand of scarce water resourcesfor agriculture to improve the livelihoods. The challenge is to make the project scalable to a higher level across the country. Efforts are going on for collaborating with State Governments, Industry Partners and International Collaborators to achieve this goal, he added.
Prof. K. VijayRaghavan,Secretary, Department of Biotechnology noted that the European Commission’s Framework Programme7 (FP7) and the Department of Biotechnology initiative has promoted the sharing of research andtechnologies among participating consortia in India and Europe for the benefit of the common people. He further said that the ‘Water4Crops’ is one of the largest Indo-EU collaborative projects in which the European Commission contributed€6 millionthrough its ‘Water4Crops-EU’ project and a similar project, ‘Water4Crops-INDIA’, was funded with €3 million by the Government of India.
Mr. Tomasz Kozlowski, Ambassador of the European Union to India, said that this project is a goodexample of how top-level research organizations from several European countries have joined forceswith their counterparts in India to develop concrete solutions able to benefit both sides. We continuethis collaboration with India through the EU-India Water Partnership, he added.
The EU Consortium includes 21 partners from 8 Countries and the India-based consortium consists of11 research and development partners led by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). Other partners on the Indian side are National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), MS Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) andEuro-India Research Centre (EIRC), among others.
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