A fresh take on water

Engineers-turned-entrepreneurs, Vikas Brahmavar and Gowthaman Desingh have developed a system that could change the way cities get water - are changing - this is fine.

Flooded basements and empty water tanks — while this paradox is common to Bengaluru’s numerous towering apartments and sprawling layouts, the irony remains striking. Yet, even as the effects of the summer water scarcity linger, the city reuses only about 40% of the treated water it generates.

This contrast between plenty and scarcity was evident in an apartment complex off the Outer Ring Road. The complex, with over 450 units, generated around 3-4 lakh litres of wastewater every week. Similar to other apartments, the next steps were either to dump the water in a nearby drain, redirect it to an empty plot of land or load it into tankers to be discarded in lakes, all illegal means of disposal.

While treated water from the sewage treatment plant was used for flushing and watering gardens, this was only a fraction of the total. The residents’ association was at a loss for what to do with the excess.

Today, in the space of two-and-a-half parking lots, the water from the apartment’s sewage treatment plant goes through an advanced filtration system installed by Boson Whitewater, and comes out potable. The apartment no longer pays tankers to carry out and dump their excess treated water. Instead, they are paid rent by Boson. The water is of such good quality that it is transported to eager buyers — nearby industries.

In an apartment complex in Electronic City, the technology is saving residents Rs 1.5 lakh every month that used to be spent on tankers for disposal.

Across Bengaluru, several company AC cooling units, labs, malls and even parts of Devanahalli town currently function efficiently with the ‘whitewater’ or treated water from the company’s water recovery units. Behind the fascinating technology and efficient operating model are Vikas Brahmavar and Gowthaman Desingh, former IT engineers who took grand leaps of faith to address a problem they witnessed every day.

Their conversation first began in the back benches of an engineering college classroom in Coimbatore. Over the years, it has progressed to one that could change how Indian cities get water. “Dr A P J Abdul Kalam had come to our college, we had both come in late. When Dr Kalam was talking, we turned to each other, saying, we should also do something,” says Vikas, on the inception of his partnership with Gowthaman.

For Vikas, who had settled into a well-paying bank job in the UK in the early 2000s, walking around the Tower Bridge in London every lunch hour got him thinking. “Cities in Singapore, the UK or the US look at population as the metric and plan water supply and wastewater systems around that. In our cities, we look at the presence and availability of water resources and think of water treatment and recovery last. Instantly, there is a gap in our approach,” he explains.

As time passed, Vikas’ dream to make an impact started to become more compelling. One morning, he quit his job.

Starting from scratch when he returned to India, after extensive consultations with scientists, entrepreneurs and investors, and a few years of testing out different paths, an idea had come to life.

Considering the city’s water requirement-supply problem, he began to think about water recovery. “The first problem we sought to solve was, how do we improve the quality of the treated water?” asks Vikas.

After close to 12 lakhs of spending in half a year, the technology was developed. “We had made potable water,” he says. The water goes through a 11-step filtration process, through various membranes that filter out biological, chemical and organic contaminants, leaving water fit for domestic consumption.

The next step was looking at commercial viability. The idea was to pitch the systems to commercial set-ups, who could use the white water to run AC cooling units.

“My first meeting was with an ecopark built by prominent builders. They were hesitant and did not believe our pitch — potable water from treated water,” says Vikas. Taking the entrepreneurial risk, he offered to make the entire initial investment.

Twenty-four meetings later, Boson’s tech found a small space in the ecopark. “We recovered our investment within a year and three months,” says Vikas.

In working with companies, their model involves making the investment, handling operations and selling the water back to the company or other industries. Currently, around 17 commercial projects use Boson Whitewater systems to use treated water for various purposes in their premises, including the Orion Mall.

Credit: DH Photo

As the company began to grow, in 2016, the next priority was to optimise operations and costs. This is when Gowthaman came in, his inputs to the system design brought down the cost of production from 12 paise to 6 paise per litre.

Gowthaman, who was in an IT job, was drawn in by a YouTube video of Vikas explaining the technology. He soon quit his job too, to join as a partner in 2017. “Bellandur Lake was a major trigger point for me. I lived close by, and the daily sight of the foaming lake made me want to do something about it and drew me to this line of work,” says Gowthaman.

This is also when automation became key to their processes. “Capital costs kept rising. We began to ask ourselves, how can we optimise further? This is when remote monitoring came into play.” Passionate about IoT, Gowthaman and the team were able to put consistent and automated processes in place to test and ensure quality, and also run some aspects of maintenance remotely. AI algorithms are used to detect anomalies in filtration efficiency and pump failures.

At this point, while operations were running smoothly, there was still much to be achieved on the ‘impact’ metric. “We were solving a problem, but with these commercial projects, we just acted as a vendor. We were not impacting city infrastructure,” says Vikas.

A clear target arose through the mentorship of World Resources Institute’s Nagaraja Prakasam. The area of greatest impact would be decentralised water recovery at the ubiquitous apartment buildings dotting Bengaluru city.

Various policies in Karnataka mandate the reuse of 100% of treated water from STPs. The goal is ‘zero liquid discharge’. However, less than half of Bengaluru’s 2,000 decentralised STPs follow this.

There is little to no monitoring of the decentralised water treatment process. “While apartments are mandated to have sewage treatment plants (STPs), only a very small portion of the water is used to water plants and for flushing in toilets,” says Vikas.

The excess is discarded in open drains and water bodies. “In many cases, the water is dumped in neighbouring empty plots, flooding those lands,” says Doris Roopa John, who works with the sales team at Boson.

Breaking into this “domestic” market was a challenge, and a slow process. The company had worked out a system — the apartment would simply rent out space and supply the water from the STP, and Boson would treat and sell the water to industries.

However, a new problem arose — transportation. Tackling opposition and aggression from tanker drivers who feared this would replace their livelihoods was the first challenge. Secondly, the money spent on tankers would drive up the cost of water.

The first buyer, a laundry company, was hesitant due to the comparatively higher price, and bought only two tankers. “But soon, they found that the higher quality of the water compared to the borewell water they were using meant fewer issues with scaling. The quantity of soap being used also came down drastically, making operations with white water cheaper overall, helping them save unit costs,” says Vikas. The buyer began to demand an increase in supply. Similarly, other industries began to prefer white water.

The day they installed a unit at a second apartment on Hosa Road, they already had a buyer lined up.

In order to scale up, the team began to pitch to angel investors, and soon aimed at 10 apartments, with their funding of Rs 3.45 crore. By the end of 2023, with these 10 projects, the company was saving 10 lakh litres of water every single day. The goal is to save 500 crore litres per year by 2026.

The summer water crisis this year spurred many apartments and associations to consider this solution. Take, for instance, Emmanuel Heights, located on Hosa Road. “We used to send out nine tankers daily, containing excess water from our STPs. Each tanker cost us Rs 1,200. We needed to look for a new system,” says Malavika Rao, a member of the RWA here. This is when a resident came across Boson in the newspaper. After discussions in the association, Boson’s system was installed here in April.

Having approached several hundred apartments, Doris points out that the key barrier is psychological. “We have had several people mock us and insult us as they perceive treated water as ‘sewage’ or ‘wastewater’. Others are not able to get past their perceptions of how it will affect their health and water supply,” she says. Resistance to change is a major factor. “Most commonly, people ask us how this will be profitable to them immediately. However, when they have faced a problem with expenses on disposal or flooding, the same people have approached us for a more long-term solution,” she adds.

Along with the regular quality tests and clear explanations, the team at Boson provides tours of their facilities and demonstrations to help people see the potential. In addition, every apartment installation comes with a board that displays the amount of water saved through the water recovery system. “We see a complete turnaround by then, where people begin to take pride in how much water is conserved,” says Doris.

The summer water crisis helped inspire quick change, says Nagaraja Prakasam. “People were hesitant earlier, but realised the realities of the water situation. Now, they are interested in buying the white water treated at their own apartment, to use to fill their swimming pools.”

Considering Bengaluru’s 2600-plus apartments, with their STPs, the model could be a groundbreaking solution, particularly for a growing city. This has been evidenced in several real use cases, including a pilot project in Devanahalli, where water treated through this tech sustains 10% of the town. This opened the possibility of working the model out for peri-urban and rural areas as well.

Several governments have taken note. Currently, Boson is working with the Chennai Municipal Corporation. They are also expanding to Pune, Hyderabad and Coimbatore. In Bengaluru, they are also one of the empanelled expert organisations working with BBMP.

This is the growth curve they have been hoping for and working towards — from changes in apartment complexes and industries to urban planning and wastewater systems across the country.

For the founders, the transition from engineers to entrepreneurs has brought with it unprecedented obstacles and opportunities alike. “It has been an exciting journey, with extremely satisfying outcomes, when we see how much water we have saved,” says Gowthaman.

Sharing a common passion has brought them a long way too. “We make a good team. I think things through a lot, and Vikas is a go-getter who gets things done,” says Gowthaman. “We get to share the work, and we especially get to share the insults and doubts that come along the way,” says Vikas, with a smile.