Big firms join move to conserve water

The new Indian Business Alliance on Water (IBAW) will facilitate public-private partnerships to expand the business community's engagement in water management projects in UP.

This will be in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

The mission on water aims to form a task force, to be headed by the agriculture production commissioner, Uttar Pradesh, and will work with industry to develop models for rain water harvesting, water treatment, conserving water, and means of recharging ground water.

This is an initiative of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the World Economic Forum Water Initiative.

The task force will hold sessions in the state and ensure that at least eight firms in UP take up best water management practices.

The CII, through its countrywide presence, will promote best practices in water management, broaden business engagement in community water projects, and facilitate discussion among businesses, governments, and NGOs to build common approaches to India's water management challenges.

Last week, in a seminar "Water Conservation and Best Water Management" in Lucknow, the secretary (minor irrigation), Uttar Pradesh, Arun Arya, apprised the audience about the "Model Water Body Scheme", announced by the Uttar Pradesh government in the state's budget for 2006-07, for constructing or renovating one pond each in 52,000 villages. It is a Rs 682 crore scheme.

The Lucknow head of environment control systems of Tata Motors, Samantak M Sharma, talked of various steps taken by the firm on water conservation and management.

These include educating employees and contractors about water conservation, checking leakages, using the sprinkler irrigation system, and adopting rain water harvesting through lagoons. He said water-recycling plants were installed at two locations.

"Tata group Chairman Ratan Tata had suggested the storage tank should be underground," he added.

The manager of the Mehndiganj plant of Coca Cola, Ranesh Sinha, spoke of what companies could do to conserve water. The company, he said, was focusing on four Rs, namely reduce, reuse, recycle, and recharge.

"Today, we recharge 87 per cent of groundwater used in our company's plants and aim at increasing it to 100 per cent," said Sinha.

Five rainwater-harvesting projects were launched by Coca Cola in Lucknow, five in Delhi, and nine in Varanasi, of which five were completed, he said.