NITI Ayog to hold 2-day workshop for 5 states in Delhi

Mumbai: The NITI Ayog will hold a two-day workshop on water, waste water and solid waste management in New Delhi to be attended by UDD secretaries of five states, a Maharashtra Urban Development department (UDD) official said.

UDD secretaries of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Assam in the workshop to be held on June 15-16 will put forth challenges and issues pertaining to waste water and solid waste management in their respective states.

A pre-workshop meeting of NITI Ayog was also held recently that was attended by UDD secretaries of these five states and experts from Singapore.

Municipal Commissioner of Kalyan-Dombivli, Nashik were also present at the meeting from Maharashtra.

The official said on condition of anonymity that NITI Ayog has focused on issues of urban planning, water, waste water and solid waste management and public financing under the PPP model to develop urban infrastructure.

"This initiative of NITI in partnership with Singapore Cooperation Enterprise (SCE) and Temasek Foundation Singapore provides a platform to state governments and Urban Local Bodies (ULB) to share the challenges being faced in urban transformation in these key areas," the official said.

It is also an opportunity to evolve and design efficient solutions to some of these challenges through partnership with urban sector experts from Singapore, he said.

The official said the workshop will cover two broad themes -- Integrated Urban Water Cycle Management for Sustainable and Resilient Water Infrastructure and Healthy Cities and second is Solid Waste Management.

"During the pre-workshop meeting, the participating officials and ULBs raised a diverse range of challenges being faced by them," he said.

"Officials from Nasik civic body pointed issues such as finding technical solutions to specific problems like froth formation in rivers due to discharge from sewage treatment plants. Whereas UDD officials said Maharashtra is developing a PPP model to provide sewage treatment plant with territory capability to provide treated water to thermal power station," he added.

The official said experts from Singapore were of the opinion that rainwater harvesting at individual-level (house) is not very efficient and that the need is at the city-level.

Such an initiative is being planned in Bengaluru, he apprised.