UK water team keen to share tech

The visiting British Water Technologies Mission is exploring the possibilities to form partnership model in order to deliver clean water and waste management technologies to commercial users, particularly in the greater Kolkata area.

"We are here to explore the business opportunities in West Bengal and identify partners," said Tony Allum, the leader of the business delegation and chairman of UK Trade and Investment, Water Sector Advisory Group.

During the visit, the delegation met the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority to identify areas in which the British technical expertise could be useful.

"We believe our technologies would be very effective particularly to address the loss of water due to transmission and renovation of pipelines," he added.

The delegation would act as a facilitator to bring in private players to India to assist water management projects. "We would discuss possibilities of projects with firms and try to find out the ones which would be useful particularly in the context of the Kolkata once we return," Allum explained.

The feedback was expected in a month or so, he added. "We export $6 billion worth of water expertise each year world wide and West Bengal could have a partnership with UK to improve water services," said Allum.

"We faced similar problems in London and as such we could implement similar technologies to solve the water related problems of Kolkata," he added.

The poor and middle class in the city are ready to pay water tax, but the upper-middle strata remains reluctant, a study carried out by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation has revealed.

"We carried out a study in association with Jadavpur University which revealed that the poor and middle class who do not receive good service are keen to pay tax for clean water, but the upper middle class are reluctant to pay," Kolkata Mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya said.