Bengaluru saw one of its worst water crises in 2024 with ground water drying up and several parts of the city scrambling for water. With instances like BWSSB supplying treated wastewater to the construction industry, apartments being permitted to sell water from their STPs to the department, and lakes in parts of Bengaluru and neighbouring districts being filled with water from the 33 STP plants in the city, recycling of water became an important topic of conversation during this period.
One would expect that a technology which converts waste water to potable water would find good traction during a period like this, but what Vikas Brahmavar, co-founder and CEO at Boson Whitewater, says reflects the reality.
“Lots of talks, but not much on the ground,” he says. “By the time people decide on implementing such solutions, rains start and then they put it on hold. It happens every year, but this year it got really bad since the crisis started in January unlike usually in March. Acting on panic shouldn’t be the norm, there should be sustainable solutions for this.”
He believes Boson Whitewater, which converts waste water into potable quality water, can offer one such solution.
Vikas and Gowtham | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Back to India
Brahmavar who did his engineering in electronics worked in Motorola initially and then moved to the U.K. where he worked for five years.
“You suddenly become patriotic when you go out of your country,” he quips and recollects how after a spirited discussion one day he and 11 other friends decided to return to India.
Brahmavar resigned the next day, ten days before he was due for his permanent residency. “The remaining 11 are still in the U.K.,” he laughs.
The initial attempt was to supply fluoride-free water to students in rural schools.
Later, along with Gowthaman Desingh, he started Boson.
Boson Whitewater system installed at one of the largest malls in Bangalore. Recovers 100000 litres of water per day and this is used for centralized cooling. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Problem of scaling up
While there has been a lot of research happening related to water not much translates into commercial products due to difficulties in scaling up, says Brahmavar.
“Core technology has not changed from the 1970s. The innovation is more on the value-add side. Here, the government charges 2.2 paisa per litre of Cauvery water. So even if you make a technology which will supply water for say 12 paisa, it won’t get market acceptance.”
Pointing out that it has been a problem across the world, Bharmavar further delves into region-specific challenges and suggests how we may need to do some reverse thinking in terms of the way water is being supplied in Bengaluru as well as in other Indian cities.
“If you look at the case of developed cities like London, they initially look at the population of the city and how much waste water this population generates. This quantity will be mapped to industries and that is the starting point for the supply of water.”
“In our case, we see what is the level of the water in the KRS Dam and begins our distribution from there. We don’t worry about what happens after that water is supplied. When we do this, we are starting our supply from a non-predictable source which is a reservoir that gets filled by rain, thereby basing our entire water infrastructure on probability.”
How to solve this?
According to Brahmavar a centralised infrastructure, however, is no more possible in any cities in India given the way cities have grown dramatically over the years and the distribution challenges a centralised system outside the city may pose.
A decentralised infrastructure where the waste water generated by one building could be used to meet the fresh water demands of a nearby building is the solution, he notes.
“The only way is to recover waste water and reuse it within the network. This way cities can sustain the growth for the next several decades,” says Brahmavar who has been trying to implement this concept through his company.
Boson whitewater system installed in 2 car parks at an apartment and the water is sold via tankers outside the apartment to industries. Saving 48,000 litres of water per day. | Photo Credit: PRADHYUMNA GUPTA
How it is done
Boson Whitewater sources waste water from sewage treatment plants of apartments, malls and IT parks. In the space provided by the supplier, the company sets up its equipment, collects the water from the STPs and and produces potable high quality water after passing it through 11 stages of treatment. The water is then supplied to industries within 4km radius through tie-ups with local tankers.
The company, which has 17 projects in Bengaluru and one in Coimbatore, currently sells around 8,30,000 litres of water every day. Its clients include Orion Mall, Biocon, Schneider, Narayana Hrudayalaya among others.
“An individual consumes around 135 litre per person, per day, in India on an average, out of which 45 litres will go for flushing and 12 litres will go for gardens. These are the only two areas where currently we are reusing the water. Rest all is drained.”
“If we can convert that drained water into high quality water for the requirements of an industry nearby, they will not have to extract the groundwater from the borewells. This way the groundwater will improve in that area. For the industry too their unit economics improve. That is what we are looking to create as an infrastructure.”
Why sell only to industries? Brahmavar explains with an anecdote.
In its initial days, the company had gotten into an agreement with an apartment in Bengaluru to supply water to the latter. On the first day of supply, the water was to be delivered by 10 am. But this was hindered due to unavailability of tankers.
Preconceived notions
However, by around 10.30 am messages started pouring in the WhatsApp group of the apartment by residents complaining of coughing and skin irritations and blaming the company for “supplying dirty water,” when it had supplied no water all day.
“People associate recycled water with smelly, coloured, dirty water,” says Brahmavar.
However, he adds that the company currently focuses on supplying to industries not only due to the high entry barrier in the domestic created by psychological factors, but also due to the pricing.
“For us, it makes sense to sell it to industries where they are able to afford the price and it’s also value-add for them.”
He explains with an example. “Industries need high-quality water - for example, laundry.” According to him, when tanker water is used by industries for laundry purposes each machine consumes about 400 grams of soap.
Lower soap consumption
“With our water, it will only take 120 grams of soap because it’s very soft, high-quality water. So, the soap consumption comes down. The treatment costs of the soap water also come down due to less consumption of soap.”
“Secondly, if they buy tanker water they have to process it via RO and therefore will have to buy twice the volume of water since half of it would go waste in the process. Our technology makes commercial sense for them and reduces their operational costs,” says Brahmavar who notes that industries such semiconductor, laundry, cooling and so on would benefit from the technology commercially as well as sustainably.
Demand-supply gap
According to him the company currently has orders for 14 lakh litres of water per day, out of which it is able to supply only 8 lakh litres.
“We don’t have enough sources. Agreements with apartments take a long time. The demand is there. We need to create more supply,” says Brahmavar.
