US team seeks to tap TN water market

CHENNAI: A water technology delegation from the United States is on a fact-finding mission to study the State’s water sector’s potential and to forge partnerships with the industry.At a session organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) southern region and US consulate here on Monday, Hugh Constant, Executive Vice-President of World Trade Centre, San Diego, told business representatives that they are looking to partner with the right company to develop local water infrastructure. The US delegation highlighted innovative water technologies to manage water supply and said they are here to understand the Indian market.Sudeep Sangameswaran, member of CII-southern region and Executive Director of Pentair Clean Process Technologies India highlighted that the per capita availability of fresh water in the country has dropped from 5,177 cubic metres in 1951 to 1,869 cubic metres in 2001.“It will decline to 1,341 cubic metres by 2025. This is alarming as the threshold per capita value of water stress is 1,000 cubic metres. The available water resources will be inadequate to meet the future needs of the sector,” he pointed out.Stressing on the need to improve water management practices, he said there is a need to provide a single point reference to address water-related issues, especially for the industry and domestic users.Mrinal Singh of Nobel Systems, a privately-held US corporation that specialises in GIS data conversion, highlighted how water networks can be digitally mapped and monitored from any part of the world by hosting the data on a cloud server.