Over 600 million people in India already deal with extreme water stress, and the country is moving towards becoming a water-scarce nation by 2030. This is exacerbated by the fact that over 74% of water in India is untreated, leading to almost 40 million litres of wastewater entering rivers and water bodies every day.

Indra Water has developed a decentralised point-of-source wastewater treatment system that has the potential to revolutionise the wastewater treatment industry. Founded in 2018 by two engineers, their patented and electrically-driven modular system is designed to treat water in a decentralised manner at the point of source, thus making it an ideal solution for both domestic and industrial water treatment. The company’s innovative design approach, which includes a structural flash reactor, enables the treatment of multiple types of wastewater, faster treatment time, higher throughput, reduced energy consumption, and lower overall treatment cost. Their enhanced water treatment efficiency would help reduce both freshwater extraction as well as the discharge of untreated water into our lakes, rivers, and water bodies.

With a mission to address the critical problem of hard-to-treat forever chemicals and promote wastewater circularity, one of the key advantages of Indra Water’s system is its modularity, which allows it to be 4x smaller, 30% lower in capex, and 40% lower in opex as compared to conventional chemical and biological wastewater treatment solutions. This makes it ideal for small and medium-sized businesses that cannot afford to invest in expensive wastewater treatment solutions. Apart from its cost-effectiveness, their system is also aligned with the government’s zero liquid discharge (ZLD) norms and adheres to the National Green Tribunal’s (NGT) guidelines.

Since its inception, Indra Water has already made a significant environmental impact, reducing 3200 tons of sludge, saving over 500 tons of GHG emissions, and preventing over 750 million litres of wastewater from entering freshwater streams. They have already successfully deployed its system for clients like Grasim (Aditya Birla Group) in Gujarat and Unilever in Indonesia with a total treatment capacity of 2.2 million litres per day, proving its effectiveness in commercial and industrial water treatment.

With support from ACT For Environment, Indra Water’s decentralised wastewater treatment system has the potential to treat approximately 7 billion litres of wastewater in the next six years and revolutionise the wastewater treatment industry in India!