Water Treatment/Decanter Better Water, Better City: Water Treatment Brings Back life to Bengaluru Lakes

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India is a land of water in many places: Huge streams, thousands of lakes and the ocean shape the face of the subcontinent. However, barely more than a third of India's wastewater is currently treated - the consequences for the population of billions are considerable. But there are examples that are encouraging - and technologies that are helping to bring life back.

Falling water levels, questionable water qualities - The citizens of Bengaluru (India) experienced the effects of increasing urbanization on water resources right on their doorstep. In 2017, images of a heavily polluted Bellandur Lake, literally on fire and billowing clouds of smoke, shocked the global public. But this is now to come to an end: Thanks to the planning and investments of national and regional governments, hundreds of water treatment plants are being built in Indian cities - not least thanks to technologies from the machinery and plant manufacturer Gea.

Raman Mehta, Vice President of the Gea plant in Bengaluru who is living at the city’s Sarakki lake, explains: "Sarakki is one of the largest lakes in Bengaluru. Traditionally considered one of the most beautiful lakes in the city, Sarakki supported wildlife including thousands of birds, until it began to shrink, and the water began to deteriorate in 2012. After months of investigation and research, civic bodies and local residents started to work together on the rejuvenation of the lake."

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Located on the Deccan Plateau at an altitude of about 940 meters above sea level, Bengaluru is actually a city of lakes: of a total of about 1,000 freshwater lakes in the region, 183 are located in the immediate city area and surrounding countryside. These water areas were long retreats for animals, important places of religion and valued recreational areas as well as important sources of drinking water.

Between Economic Growth and Water Worlds

Since the early 1990s, increasing urbanization - led by the massive growth of the IT industry - has led to a huge increase in urban population. The consequences are well known: Due to the enormous demand for fresh water and inadequate wastewater treatment infrastructure, pollution entered the interconnected lakes and streams and reached unacceptable levels. The formerly existing wildlife disappeared, the water level decreased and the lakes were no longer suitable for human activities.

"As a part of lake rejuvenation plan by the authorities a five MLD water treatment plant was installed on the lake side to process waste water. For the last couple of years, I have lived beside this lake and have seen it gradually being transformed", adds Raman. This plant uses Gea's Environemental Decanter centrifuges as the central building block of the process technology to recover millions of liters of water from the treated sewage sludge. This is treated in the wastewater treatment plant before being discharged into watercourses or, where possible, into the drinking water system.

In this process, decanter centrifuges are used in the final (tertiary) stage of the water treatment process, after primary and secondary biological treatment. In this way, millions of liters of biologically treated wastewater can be recovered, recycled and reprocessed before being discharged directly into lakes and other watercourses.

Bengaluru Looks to Water: Treatment Solutions Sought

V. S. Narayanan, experienced environmental project manager and consultant to various engineering companies, stresses the role decanter centrifuges play in water reclamation: "In a recent initiative, projects that started with rejuvenation of lakes in and around Bengaluru are now being extended to the construction of treatment plants that will clean up watercourses that pass directly through the city. The aim is to create waterways that are clean enough to be used for boating, and other recreational activities. This ability to reclaim water using the centrifuge technology is hugely beneficial to the clean-up and conservation effort, and the Karnataka state pollution control board has been the first in the country to mandate that even smaller water treatment plants with a capacity lower than 500,000 liters per day (500 kld) should have decanter centrifuges. Thanks to Gea decanters, valuable water is recovered from the process sludge.”

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Bengaluru is supplied daily with 1400 million liters of water from four stages of the Kaveri River, located about 100 km from Bengaluru, which is brought to a height of nearly 540 meters by a series of 2000 hp pumps. The water is first passed through the river's treatment plant and then pumped in three stages to the city. In addition, another 400 Million liters of water will be extracted from drilled wells and clean lake water. In total, therefore, around 1800million liters of water are produced for the city.

One and a half million liters of clean water from the decanter

Dinesh Gehani, Regional Product Sales Manager APAC, Business Line Environment at Gea adds: "In fact, we’ve supplied 55 Gea biosolids Decanter to wastewater plants in Bengaluru. The decanters currently commissioned and operating are assisting in reclaiming 1.48 billion liters of water from the sludge annually, which is being sent for further treatment in the system and return to the water resources. That’s about the same volume as 600 Olympic swimming pools. It’s expected that another 1.22 billion liters of annual water reclamation will be possible over the course of the next few years. We believe that this real-world application of Gea solutions showcases the successful development and use of our technologies as ‘engineering for a better world.’"

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There is still much to be done: "Initiated as early as the 1990s the Bengaluru lake rejuvenation effort has, and continues to represent, a formidable undertaking", states Additional Chief Engineer (Retd) of the Bangalore Water Supply & Sewerage Board. "The program is funded largely by the national government and regional bodies, but also involves private-public partnerships. Already 33 treatment plants with a capacity in excess of 1370 MLD capacity have been established in the city and its surroundings, and another three plants of 167 MLD are being constructed, alongside. 14, smaller treatment plants of about 124 MLD are in progress, so that capacity will be around 1663 MLD of treatment water within the next year or so. In total, 95 of the 183 lakes in the city are now being treated, with additional treatment works being planned, built and commissioned.”

India Wants to Advance Water Reclamation on a Grand Scale

Begaluru is not alone in this: a similar development is taking place throughout India. A recently published CPCB report (National Inventory of Treatment Plants) states that the entire country still lacks the capacity to treat 40,000 million liters of clean water per day, and that only 30 percent of wastewater is treated nationwide. The goal is therefore to treat 90 percent of https://www.gtai.de/de/trade/indien/branchen/industrie-investiert-in-klaeranlagen-780668Abwässer nationwide within a few years, not only in major cities but also in smaller towns and villages. Funding is provided by the Indian government and regional states, together with external international investment programs that support the construction of wastewater treatment plants throughout the country.

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