GIZ is engaged in the field of international cooperation for sustainable development and international education work, dedicated to shaping a future worth living around the world. GIZ has over 50 years of experience in a wide variety of areas, including economic development and employment promotion, energy and the environment, and peace and security. GIZ’s main commissioning party is the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). As a federal enterprise, GIZ supports the German Government in achieving its objectives in the field of international cooperation for sustainable development in more than 120 countries worldwide.
Under the Indo German Development Cooperation, a project on “Sustainable and Environment-friendly Industrial Production” (SEIP) was taken up from March 2015 to February 2019. SEIP project focused on finding solutions to industrial wastewater and water so as to reduce pollution, besides working on corresponding state level action plans and national level policy instruments. Ref. www.seip.urban-industrial.in.
The second phase of the Sustainable and Environment-friendly Industrial Production (SEIP) that will be implemented from March 2019 to February 2022 is based on the experiences from the preceding SEIP project that ended in 02/2019. The second phase of SEIP will continue to have a focus on abatement of industrial wastewater pollution in the context of urban areas as well as the pollution of rivers and other water resources. The aim of the project is the promotion of sustainable industrial development in the urban sphere by reducing industrial wastewater pollution through the strengthening of strategic and operational governance structures including framework conditions for regulating, implementing and monitoring. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change of the Government of India is the implementing partner.
The objective of the SEIP phase 2 project is, “The strategic and operational governance structures of the Indian Government to effectively combat water pollution from industrial wastewater are strengthened.” The SEIP II phase works on the following main outputs:
On the topic of industrial wastewater management, industries often ask for information on available technologies, case examples and best practices so that they can look for solutions for problems related to wastewater problems in their companies.
There is a need for a technology platform from where information can be obtained by the industries and support obtained if needed for additional information such as suppliers/manufacturers of equipment, B2B meetings, site visits etc. Different forms of Technology exist today such as UNIDO’s Sustainable Technology Promotion Platform1
(STePP), European Technology Platform2 etc. Also, in Germany and Europe, Best Available Techniques Reference Documents exist, which can be used by public agencies as well as private sector (ref. https://eippcb.jrc.ec.europa.eu/reference/). However, there is a need for a customised Wastewater Technology Platform to support industries in providing with relevant information and support.
As part of SEIP II project, GIZ contracted GeoStone Corpration for developing, hosting and operating the envisioned Industrial Wastewater Technology Platform.
The objective of this project is to set up an Industrial Wastewater Technology Platform for making available relevant information on industrial wastewater management including conveyance systems, wastewater treatment, recycle/reuse, monitoring etc. to all the relevant stakeholders and to provide services such as information exchange between German companies and the Indian company seeking information, facilitating B2B meetings, facilitating site visits etc.
As the Stakeholder Mapping is focused on Water Stewardship, the boundary limits were set from water to treated wastewater. The water intensive operations of the value chain in the process would primarily be wastewater generation units at Industry level.
The industry can be broadly divided into three segments – Those who are allowed to discharge treated wastewater on Land or in Water Body (Including Municipal Sewers), Industries discharging their partly treated wastewater to CETPs and Industries who maintain Zero Liquid Discharge(ZLD) in absence of any discharge /disposal mechanism for treated wastewater. These stakeholders play a vital role in the functioning of the Wastewater Treatment Segment. They may be summarized as follows, –
The Stakeholder Mapping exercise started off with the understanding of the actors/ agencies involved in the Water Use/ Wastewater Management at various levels of hierarchy. Further a thorough study of the Industry Sector was taken up holistically into processes involved from Industrial activities ending with the wastewater generation. As the focus of this study is limited to only wastewater technologies, the other segments into other processes and its blends were not considered for detailed study. The stakeholders mapped were hence limited to the ones associated either with wastewater technologies or operations given their linkage with wastewater treatment.
GeoStone had interactions with various stakeholders to validate the understanding and to ensure that all critical stakeholders are captured in the list of identified stakeholders that are linked to Wastewater Management at all levels. The methods adopted for this strategic review and mapping across the stakeholders include:
On the topic of industrial wastewater management, industries are in search of information on available technologies, case examples and best practices to arrive at an optimum solution for problems related to wastewater in their companies. The industries and the pollution control boards will be supported with establishment of an Industrial Wastewater Technology Platform, for making available relevant information and available technologies on industrial wastewater management including conveyance systems, wastewater treatment, recycle/reuse, monitoring etc.
To develop the required necessary framework, this activity includes four stages – 1. Needs gathering 2. Designing and developing industrial wastewater technology platform 3. Commissioning and operating the technology platform including e-portal and the services 4. Plan for sustainability of the technology platform.
The activity is being executed by Experts from SEIP-GIZ and a senior team of national and international experts from M/s Geostone Corporation. The activity is in good progress and status as of June 2020 is presented below,-
The “Profile of the German Water Sector 2015” provides a comprehensive and up to date picture of water supply and wastewater disposal services in Germany.
