When you are at the CST railway station in Mumbai next time, look down at the platform.
You will find it surprisingly clean, but what is even more amazing is that it has been washed
with recycled sewage.
Central Railway has installed a machinery to clean sewage and free it of germs, so that it can be re-used.
Platforms, trains and tracks at the railway station are washed with purified, cleaned sewage water.
Many consider sewage recycling a technology essential for the future, when re-use of water
may be the only way to slake the increasing needs of growing cities like Mumbai.
Central Railway recycles nearly 1.5 lakh litres of water daily, and saves a pretty penny:
the cost of recycling (Rs10 per thousand litres) is less than half
the Bombay Municipal Corporations water rates (Rs25 per thousand litres).
But its not the money, rather the scarcity of water that forced Central Railway to recycle.
There was no option but to rely on recycling sewage and using tanker water, said TS Ajit,
section engineer, Central Railway. It is water scarcity, which has made sewage recycling a hot topic.
Mumbai gets nearly 3,000 million litres a daya shortfall of about 1,000 million litres.
The Middle Vaitarna dam, which is under construction, is expected to fill this shortfall.
The BMC this month implemented a pilot recycling project at Worli. But other cities are not as keen
because recycling plants are costly: the railways plant, for example, cost Rs 24 lakh
when it was commissioned in 1999. And requiring a space of 23 metres by 14 metres.
The cost of recycling an entire citys sewage would run into hundreds of crores of rupees:
unimaginable for impoverished town governments and a substantial amount even for
the cash-rich Bombay Municipal Corporation.
So, the Maharashtra government is dreaming of de-centralisation. It has plans to promote
tiny recycling plants on terraces or basements of large buildings, said VS Dhumal,
principal secretary, water supply and sanitation, Government of Maharashtra.
He hoped that the large populations in housing complexes or high-rises in cities
would be able to pool together enough money to afford their own recycling plants.
As of now, recycling is not widespread, Dhumal observed. With water available at a cheap rate,
where is the incentive for recycling?, he asked. But with rising population and
increasing water scarcity, people in Mumbai will have to eventually implement it, Dhumal added.
While drinking or cooking with recycled water is stigmatised,
usually without factual basis, such water can be used for washing and flushing,
which consume the maximum amount of water in the city.
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