Homegrown technology-based water purifiers will soon begin meeting the potable water requirements of nearly 50,000 households in Uttarakhand where fear of disease looms large after flash floods.
Around 23 water purifying units, operating on hollow fibre membrane ultrafiltration technology developed by the Central Salt Marine & Chemical Research Institute (CSMCRI) here, would soon be installed in the Himalayan state.
“One of our licensees will soon be installing 23 water purifying units in Uttarakhand capable of dispensing 5,000 to 7,000 litres of potable water per hour,” CSMCRI Director Pushpito Ghosh told PTI.
Fear of contamination and outbreak of water borne disease looms large in Uttarakhand after the flash floods in the hilly state last month, as large number of bodies still remain ‘untraced’ there.
“To be installed in Tehri and Rudraprayag, these units...will have a combined safe water dispensing capacity of 1.5 to 2 lakh litres per day, adequate to cover around 50,000 households,” he said.
CSMCRI had licensed its ultrafiltration technology to a Pune-based private company a few years ago. The company, in association with a NGO, will begin installing the purifiers in Uttarakhand soon.
“They are likely to be installed in next few weeks,” Ghosh said, adding that the ultrafiltration technology gets rid of turbidity, bacteria, viruses and objectionable odour.
“More such units can be installed there if the situation demands so,” he said.
The highlight of these units is that by taking advantage of the terrain (in getting a natural pressure head) they can operate without electricity and do not require a pressure pump.
Earlier, after the flash floods, CSMCRI, a laboratory of Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), had installed a mobile water purification unit in Rishikesh having a built-in reverse osmosis (RO) plant of 6,000 litres per hour capacity.
The institute had also installed an ultrafiltration plant at the H N Bahuguna base hospital at Srinagar in Uttarakhand, and another one at a nearby teaching institute of the hospital, to meet the initial drinking water supply requirements there.
“One of the units has been recalled and we are in the process of sending them another simpler water purification unit in place of it,” Ghosh said.