Niti Aayog to hold talks on water, waste management

The National Institute for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog will hold a workshop on water, waste water and solid waste management on June 16 and 17 in New Delhi in which various states and cities will relate the challenges they face in these areas.

State urban development department (UDD) secretary Manisha Mhaiskar was present at a recently-concluded pre-workshop meeting at NITI Aayog where these issues were discussed in the presence of experts from Singapore, which has offered technical support to cities for rainwater harvesting and solid waste management.

UDD secretaries of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Assam and the municipal commissioner of Kalyan-Dombivali and Nashik were present at the meeting.

According to Ms Mhaiskar, NITI Aayog has focused on issues such as urban planning, water, waste water and solid waste management and public financing under the PPP model to develop urban infrastructure.

This unique initiative of NITI in partnership with the Singapore Cooperation Enterprise (SCE) and Temasek Foundation, Singapore, provides a platform to state governments and urban local bodies (ULB) to share challenges faced in urban transformation in these key areas and to evolve and design efficient solutions to some of these challenges through partnership with urban sector experts from Singapore, said a UDD official, who did not want to be named.

The official added that the workshop would cover two broad themes, namely ‘integrated urban water cycle management for sustainable and resilient water infrastructure and healthy cities’ and ‘solid waste management’.

During the meeting, participating officials from various state government and ULBs raised a diverse range of challenges being faced by them. An official from Nashik municipal corporation raised issues such as finding technical solutions to specific problems like froth formation in rivers due to discharge from sewage treatment plants. Whereas, UDD officials said that Maharashtra state is developing a PPP model to provide sewage treatment plant with territory capability to provide treated water to thermal power station.

The official said that Singapore experts who were present in the meeting were of the view that rainwater harvesting at individual house level is not efficient and there is a need to plan rainwater harvesting at the city level.