India presents enormous opportunities, challenges for water sector

AWWA India, the Association’s first international community outside of North America, recently held its second conference and exhibition (AICE18) in Hyderabad, India.

About 250 government and industry delegates attended, up from 200 the previous year, as well as AWWA India’s board members and staff, AWWA President-Elect Jim Williams and AWWA Chief Executive Officer David LaFrance.

A ‘Women in Water’ session at the conference drew more than 25 attendees, and Williams spoke with a woman student at a university in Mumbai who started a student AWWA India chapter that has attracted a lot of interest.

“I was delighted to meet a very strong contingent of empowered females, especially since there haven’t traditionally been many opportunities for women in India,” said Williams, who was among the conference’s presenters. “It’s refreshing to see these young women learning to step up and truly make a difference in the water sector.”

However, Williams said, India is a land of stark contrasts, and the challenges are immense. It is not healthy to drink water out of the tap, and many locations only have water service a few hours a few days a week. He also traveled to India in 2012 with Water for People and toured many small, rural communities.

“India is in many ways a beautiful and wonderful country, but the water situation continues to be really severe,” he said. “India is just beginning to tackle things that North America dealt with a century ago.”

To ramp up its efforts in India, AWWA needs to establish stronger relationships at the government level and convince professionals running water and wastewater plants to embrace AWWA’s standards of practice, Williams said.

“AWWA does such a good job with the Water Utility Council and the government affairs department managing United States legislative and regulatory issues,” he said. “We need some of that same energy in India at the government level to impact change there. The government has to become a collaborative partner if we’re going to reach our objectives.”

In addition, Williams said, AWWA India needs to organize and nurture relationships within the sales and service community to encourage the delivery of innovative technologies.

To increase knowledge and generate more revenue, AWWA India plans to deliver more training seminars in addition to its annual conference. Service providers interested in conducting training in India can contact Rebecca Wheeler, AWWA’s senior manager of international programs.

“I’m optimistic that if we focus on these efforts, we’ll see additional progress and positive things happening going forward,” Williams said.