The world isn’t running out of water… it is running low on clean water

by Lalit Bajare, Nixie Engineers, India

Hi! A chemical engineer by education; I have been a water and wastewater treatment professional for last 24 years. Having started career at Ion Exchange (I) ltd; Mumbai in 1996, I moved to Singapore and worked with Hyflux and Chartered Semiconductor Mfg Ltd for around 5 years before moving back to India and starting on my own as “Nixie Engineers Pvt Ltd”.

During my tenure with Ion Exchange and Hyflux, I handled projects from the execution stage to commissioning. I was involved in commissioning of “Newater plant – Seletar” and was associated with one of the largest desalination plants in Asia; the SDWPS (Singapore Desalination Water Project, Singapore) at Tuas in Singapore. Working with reputed consultants like CH2M Hill and BV I got worldwide exposure to different types of water and wastewater plants.

I moved back to India to start on my own in 2005 and started as “Nixie Engineers Pvt Ltd”. I am now leading a team of professionals. Initially we focussed on industrial projects and supplied plants to Australia, Oman, Singapore, Indonesia and even to London but soon found the need of developing some products and we developed two…first being the AquAs-5..a solar powered ATM operated Arsenic removal unit from drinking water and the second being trademark registered (Patent Filed) “FBTec” for wastewater recycle and reuse at source. Attached is my resume to get you more details which are mostly building an organization “Nixie Engineers Pvt Ltd.”

Started in 2005, with a focus on Industrial water and wastewater treatment systems, we have a world-wide client base. Along with providing custom built solutions like Ultra-filtration, reverse Osmosis, Sewage treatment plants, complex waste treatment plants, effluent treatment, we focus on building systems or technologies for municipal needs after understanding their challenges while working on wastewater reuse. If you speak about India, the goal is to increase the recycle percentage to 30% which is at just 2% currently. So, of late, we are focused on “wastewater recycle reuse at source” as every drop counts!

For last 4 years, along with usual custom-built engineered projects; we invested heavily in developing products. One being Arsenic removal unit from drinking water especially for Bangladesh and the other being “FBTec®”…the domestic wastewater treatment and recycle-reuse system developed under UN guidelines for “De-centralized wastewater treatment systems”. Nixie is now fully focussed on “FBTec®” and with its use to recycle and reuse wastewater at source. The technology has recently been recognised by the federal or central water ministry (Jal Shakti) in India as an innovative technology for sanitation. The increasing sanitation in rural areas is a challenge.

Finally, the world is not running out of water but providing enough clean water to the increasing urbanisation is a challenge and innovative ideas like “FBTec®” would help us saving each drop of water which is precious.

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