Up-scaling of Decentralised Wastewater Management Solutions: Lessons Learned and Way Forward in India
Résumé
Centralized solutions are not suitable for the short and medium term for many cities and towns in developing countries such as India. Hence, decentralized solutions have been considered as a viable alternative. However, lack of financing, political orientations and decisions, capacity, awareness, etc. causes substantial challenges for sustainable decentralised solutions. This paper presents an overview of the current situation in India and provides an illustration using the example of the Indian capital city, Delhi, with respect to decentralized wastewater management. Further, based on previous experience and available information a SWOT analysis for decentralized wastewater management is presented. The paper concludes that there even though a large variety of decentralised wastewater treatment a technologies has already been implemented across India, there are substantial knowledge gaps with respect to the actual performance of those systems, in particular for small scale systems, and hence, an independent and compressive evaluation of in particular small scale systems is required. The paper then briefly presents the project SARASWATI, funded by European Commission and Government of India, which aims at conducting such an independent evaluation of small scale decentralized treatment plants in India. The evaluation framework includes technical, hygienic, environmental, social, economic and institutional aspects.