SEWAGE WATER CLEAN ENOUGH TO DRINK

AN ENTERPRISING MUMBAIKAR HAS FOUND A WAY TO DEAL WITH THE CITY'S DRINKING WATER SHORTAGE

What would you say if we told you that the sparkling water coming out of your tap is what exited from your loo not so long ago? It's not such an outlandish notion because if the Enhance Nature Chemistry Purification system invented by Malad-resident Vag Shantharam Shenai gets the government's go ahead, you could soon be drinking treated sewage water.


The purification system called Bio-Sanitiser, which is actually an innocuous-looking substance that resembles coal, has been invented by 49-year-old Shenai wherein sewage water is purified and becomes ready to use within seconds. If implemented on a large scale, Shenai's project could also spell an end to the city's water woes.

Several housing societies and five star hotels are already using Shenai's new technique to treat sewage water as well as to curb the breeding of mosquitoes in water storage systems and removal of bad odour and heavy metal from water. Also, water that has been treated with the Bio-Sanitiser is being supplied to slums. It was also supplied to a highrise once.

"BMC's water will last in the open for just a week. It will develop a foul odour and will be unusable.

WATER MAN

• V S Shenai began purifying sewage water in 2005

• Sewage water treated by him is now being supplied in many slums

• Two high-rises also receive this water. The residents, however, do not know But water treated with the Bio-Sanitiser is the purest you can find. It will never spoil," says Shenai. A tiny piece of the Bio-Sanitiser costs between Rs 4,000 and Rs 10,000 but will last a lifetime.

Interestingly, Nashik Municipal Corporation has been using the Bio-Sanitiser since 2007 at its four sewage treatment plants at Tapovan, Morvadi, Chehedi and Bhujbal with great success. BMC is still mulling over introducing it in Mumbai.

Shenai came up with the idea for the purification system in 2005 when, during the July 26 deluge, he saw BMC purifying (using traditional methods) drinking water from a reservoir that had dead buffalos lying in it for several days.

"I thought if drinking water contaminated with the rotten germs of a dead animal can be reused then why not sewage?" Shenai said.

He soon began working on the project at the BMC's Versova Pumping Station, Andheri (W). "I am not a scientist, but I developed the Bio-Sanitiser system with the help of Dr Uday Bhawalkar, advisor to the department of Science and Technology, Government of India," said Shenai.

When contacted, D S Bhujbal, chief engineer, sewerage operation, BMC, said, "Let me first take a look at the system, only then will I be able to say something," he added.

V S Shenai


NO ODOUR: A students smells a urinal cleaned using sewage water treated by Shenai method

AKELA -Mumbai Mirror