Water Purifiers for Home and Offices:Are They Really Needed? How to Get the Best?

Some of my readers might have read one of my earlier blog article wherein I had discussed some pertinent issues pertaining to drinking water safety in my own country India. [ If you haven't read it, click here to read that blog!]

While drinking water safety is a major concern for my nation, India, it cannot be presumed that it is very good and very safe in the developed nations of our world today. For various reasons, drinking water quality deterioration is a worldwide phenomena and it is directly linked to multifarious human developmental activities. The more the pupulation and the economic activities, the more likely the water of that region becoming potentially hazardous to drink.

I remember drinking water directly from the open well of my village home in Kerala state during my childhood days without any kind of water treatment. Underground water filtered out by the layers of soil had been considered pure and safe in those days! But as the population increased and the number of dwelling units per unit area increased, it is no more safe to presume the quality of any underground well water.

For that matter, no water as naturally available in populated regions can be considered of having reasonably good quality for consuming directly without proper treatment.

Why it is so? Water is a universal solvent and cleaning agent. We use it for drinking, cooking, washing utensils and cloths, cleaning our homes and automobiles, horticulture, piscicultrue, leisure and several kinds of industrial uses. In all those processes, an equivalent quantity of wastewater is generated which we discharge to the natural drainages with or without some kind of waste water treatment.

Normally we do not bother to do any elaborate waste water treatment unless the statutory authorities compel us to do so. In most part of the world, waste water treatment methods for individual homes and small communities either do not exist or are not mandatorily enforced. Even for the industries, water pollution control methods are not strictly followed for several reasons including high costs, ignorance, lack of adequate technology and indifference.

Normally, a good majority of polluting substances mixed in waste waters, such as human excreta, pathogenic microorganisms and many other polluting substances picked up by water when it is used, get naturally bio-degraded provided the waste water gets sufficient time for the bio-degradation process to complete. However, with higher water usage on account of population growth and modern human needs, these natural processes do not get completed before the water is again drawn for further use.

Besides, there are many substances that usually get into water from various sources that do not get bio-degraded or removed completely by natural processes. These include various kinds of fertilizers, chemicals used for pest control, medicines used for disease control, chemicals used for washing and cleaning, hormones used for plant and animal productivity enhancements, radioactive waste effluents from thermal and nuclear power plants, hydrocarbon chemicals from autofuels and chemical plants, waste leaches from solid wastes and inferior plastics, etc.

Even water that looks apparently clean and hygienic, cannot be determined as fully safe, in such a scenario unless it is elaborately tested and certified.

However, high level water testing and certification is not practical. 

When water that we drink contains certain impurities in small quantities, it is sometimes difficult for us to know about it. When the color, turbidity, odor and taste are not upto our liking, we may reject it if we have other better options. But as water is becoming scarce in many parts of the world, we do not necessarily enjoy such a privilege of selecting water of our choice!

Then, how do we safely transform the water that we have to something really safe and pleasurely drinkable?

Large water treatment facilities are indeed expensive and only large industries can afford it. And the industries treat water in large treatment plants when they find it essential for their industrial operations.

For homes and offices, one may resort to getting piped muncipal water or getting bottled mineral water as marketted by the treated water suppliers. There are also several kinds of domestic water treatment gadgets available in the markets all of which claim to convert your available pipe water supply to safe drinking water.

Such domestic water purifier systems are numerous. Some of them use simple catridge filters while some others have a complex series of treatment modules that perform coarse filtration, fine filtration, odor removal, dissolved solid removal by reverse osmosis and finally doing disinfection by ultraviolet radiation or some other methods.

While such domestic water purifier units may do some good, they cannot be considered as a universal solution to all kinds of water purification purposes. That is because of the varying levels of impurities in the source water that may be available from place to place.

I have been examining the various kinds of water treatment products that are available in the world market today. While some companies make reasonably good products, all cannot be considered in the same way. All products have merits as well as demerits. It is difficult for the common user to differentiate between such products.

Recently I have come across a US water treatment specialist company which produce and market domestic water purification equipment in the tradename PureEffectFilters.

Their website provides much information and their water purifier units use high quality microfiltration catridges of appropriate designs to remove all kinds of unwanted impurities from almost all kinds of water while retaining all the essential water salts and minerals in the water.

They call their water purifier units as the water re-vitalizers because these ultra filtration systems only remove unwanted impurities from water while enhancing some of the potable qualities of water by improving its taste and freshness. 

The company's water purifiers are available not only in the United States of America (USA), but also marketted worldwide and can be ordered online.

Those interested in knowing more about water and the differences between various water purifier systems and units should explore their website. 

It is time that we start giving importance to the water we use. Let us not unknowingly cause our body systems to degenerate and cause unidentified sicknesses by consuming water containing unidentifiable impurities. 

Spending some money for getting the best kind of water purifier at home or office, just as the airconditioner or the refrigerator, should not be considered as a wasteful expenditure. I would say, it is an essential thing now.

I would suggest my readers to share this blog with their friends. I would also suggest some of them to be an associate or affiliate of PureEffectFilters in helping them to reach out to more and more people who might think of using a proper water purifier essential for good living!

Role of Chemical Engineers in Indian Progress in the Field of Water and Waste Water Engineering!

Among the natural resources essential for sustenance of life on earth, air and water play the most important roles. Though air is the most important resource for life, it is water that has been determining the development of human civilizations on earth. Water   continues to be of prime importance for life and its importance is on an increasing trend as we move on.

When water is in abundance, we normally do not pay much attention to it. But as the population grows with more and more industrialization and human activities, safe water has been becoming a scarce resource for us. 

In the past, we could have lived with simple knowledge about water. But now, knowing more about water is becoming more and more important. Air, water and land constitute the most important environmental issues that concern all human beings on earth now.

As a chemical engineer professionally involved with water and environmental issues, I have been quite fascinated and interested in the topic of water. 

The following are some of the blog articles that I had written where water is the main theme: 

1. My Love and Hate Relationships with Water !

2. Raw Water Filtration: Some Technical Tips For Major Users

3. Water Supply , Sanitation and Solid Waste Management : Why does India Fair Poorly ?

4. How Safe Is Your Drinking Water in India? Be Aware of These!

Water and waste water technologies and engineering require multidisciplinary skills and therefore engineers with chemical engineering background are the most suited to get trained and develop as water experts. In fact, most of the reputed water technology firms of the world now are predominantly run by chemical engineers. It would not be so difficult for young chemical engineers to grasp the various aspects of water technology, water usage and application technology, treatment processes for water and waste water, water quality control, equipment designs, pumping, piping and process instrumentation, automation, water treatment chemicals and the like. Since they possess the basic educational skills to understand the wider scope in the practical field, they would be better equipped to make improvements and developments in the field as they gain field experience. However, most of the Indian industries and utilities seldom realize this and chemical engineers are hardly employed by them for water and waste water related jobs.

Water Brought For Use in An Indian Industry

As a result several of the users of water (in India) are not always not so well versed with the various engineering and technological aspects of water. For any technology to advance, the users also need to have fundamental knowledge and understanding.

During my long experience in the Indian industry, I have mostly found conventional engineers with civil, mechanical and electrical or science backgrounds getting associated with jobs related to water and waste water technology and engineering. Though by experience and on the job learning they keep enhancing their knowledge in this field. But most often there are some grey areas in their understanding that they keep making serious errors in decision making that cause much distress to the industry, without any one really realizing! Many Indian industries and utilities keep incurring heavy losses on account of this neglect or lack of understanding!

On the other hand, the developed nations keep advancing in their knowldge in technology and engineering related to water, waste water and pollution control fields. Many progressive companies have realized the potential of chemical engineering that they keep recruting them and providing them the work platforms for proving their creativity and multidisciplinary engineering education. Most of the high technology companies in the world employ large numbers of chemical engineers. That is true for the technology suppliers in the field of water and waste water engineering as well.

As a result of the lack of understanding of the Indian employers about the potentials of chemical engineering training, the employability of chemical engineers kept on reducing. None of the hundreds of new engineering colleges and institutions in India have chemical engineering as a field of study. I had written about the failure of India in promoting the growth of chemical engineering education in the recent years. Chemical engineering curriculum as developed in the western nations has been so devised as a versatile modern engineering stream that the young chemical engineers are equipped to handly any kind of modern engineering jobs. Unfortunately, many academicians and industry leaders (in India) have pretty no understanding about this!

Most of the chemical engineers trained by the IITs and the other reputed colleges in India migrate to the western worlds due to the lack of opportunities in India. Fortunately, the developed nations realize the value of these engineers and do provide them the opportunities to prove their skills. The loss of India is gain for others!

Remember the comments of some writers that appeared in the social media in the recent past. The critics highlighted about some chemical engineers of India from the IITs venturing in to jobs and business ventures that are not even remotely connected to their basic engineering studies! Of course, the Indian industry and the policy makers caused them to shift away from their basic training and be successful in other fields. True, India gained at the cost of some critical field of work!

When I began to write today's blog, my idea was to provide some information to those who might need some good information about water and waste water technologies. I know, my thoughts have shifted from the original.

I realized that it is not so important for me to duplicate the knowledge that is already available and accessible to the public as published in the various internet sites. 

Yet, people who are not so conversant with the subject of water may find it difficult to get the appropriate information using the internet search engines due to their lack of understanding in the key words that they need to use for such purposes.

Therefore, in this article, I attempt to give some important links to some useful websites that provide the much needed water and waste water related information. A click on these linked titles below would take the reader to the pages where more information can be found. Besides, these key words could be used to find more reading materials.

One of the websites that provide much information about water and wastewater, especially for industrial users is the site of M/s.Lenntech BV Netherlands. This company specializing in water and waste water technologies is a business venture started by a group of Dutch chemical engineers in their university campus some two decades ago. Will the Indian universities allow their students to do some thing similar? Never! And that is one of the reasons why India could so far not mature to the status of a developed nation from the perpetual conundrum that keeps it self declared as a developing nation! 

Coming back to the most important information that one can get from the Lenntech site, I find the following interesting and informative:

1. Salient features of integrated turn-key water and waste water treatment projects by Lenntech 

2. Information on containerized Water and Wastewater treatment plants as supplied by Lenntech

3. Definitions on process water, demineralized water (DM water), drinking water, drinking water standards , drinking water standard comparison,  Irrigation water, Ultra pure water, etc

4. Salient information about water treatment technologies such as : sea water desalination, surface water treatment,   Water softening, water disinfection, water re-mineralization ,  Membrane Bio-Reactor (MBR), Moving Bed Biofilm Reactor (MBBR), Waste Water Treatment, Pesticide removal from water, Iron removal from water, Arsenic removal from water, Heavy metal removal from water, Nitrates removal from water, Ion exchange water treatement, Reverse Osmosis (RO) Water treatment, etc

5. Water and waste water calculators for process engineers

6. Water treatment equipment information on: sediment filters, sand filters, Activated Carbon Filters, Iron Removal Filter Plants, Arsenic Filters, Remineralization Filters, Electro De-ionization (EDI), Oil filtration, Nano Filtration/ Ultra Filtration/ Micro Filtration, Coagulation/Flocculation,  Clarification,  Adsorption, Chemical Oxidation, Catalytic Wet Air Oxidation, Sludge treatment, Thickening, Stabilization, Centrifugation dewatering, etc

7. Information on Water treatment Chemicals, Water testing instruments, Water testing Lab Procedures, etc

Various types of pumps, valves, pipes/pipe fittings and other chemical process equipment are used for water treatment and industrial waste water treatment and sewage treatment plants.

The technology of water and waste water treatment plants employ various unit processes and unit operations of chemical engineering. Experienced chemical engineering companies are the developers of many modern water treatment technologies and they put the chemical engineering theories to practice.

With the advancement of human needs and comforts, advanced materials and equipment are getting produced year after year. This in turn burdens the environment and causes air and water pollution. To reverse the bad effects of water pollution, we need to develop new technologies that can offset the water pollution by appropriate water and waste water treatment technologies. 

Waterborne diseases are on the rise now-a-days and it is necessary to know the causes and the remedial measures. There are various microbes that causes problems for drinking water supplies.

Microbes also create problems for industrial water consumers.  But some microorganisms can be effectively used for treating waste waters that are rich in biologically degradable wastes such as municipal sewage and industrial wastewaters containing organic contaminants. Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) and Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) are two parameters commonly used to measure the organic contamination of water.

Wastewater treatment plants where BOD treatment is predominantly done using biological processes is commonly called BOD plants. 

Another informative website that I would recommend for those interested in enhancing their water related knowledge is the website of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

In this site one can find useful information on a number of topics such as: Drinking water test (analytical) methods, Drinking Water Regulations, Anaerobic digestion, Classification of water types, Water pollution control guidelines, Source water protection, wastewater technology fact sheets, etc.

Water and wastewater engineering and technology is a vast field which needs to be given importance for any country to progress in a sustainable manner. 

Awareness in about the various aspects of water , in my opinion, should start right from the schools and there should be efforts to enhance this awareness among the populace.

The government of India now has began to take up this issue in a big way. Recently, some understanding has been signed between India and Canada for the exchange of clean water technologies.

But Indian industry and the big and small Indian cities are pretty poor in understanding the importance of water for them. As a result, they tend to neglect this area and keep proceeding as if they were in the 19th century! As a result, Indian water and waste water plant projects take decades to complete! Even when completed, they fail to provide the desired usefulness.

On the other hand, the water technology companies in the private sector in India has been making good progress and many of them are competent to handle any kind of water treatment challenges. Many of them are trying to market water technologies that are developed in the developed nations in India. 

Unfortunately, many of their potential Indian clients do not have the essential skills to realize the benefits of the new technologies or to make use of the available technologies in a knowledgeable manner! 

There exists a wide gap between the knowledge levels of the suppliers and the users! This actually creates a big challenge for the Indian water and waste water technology suppliers.

The knowledge and competency levels of the Indian policy makers seems to be text bookish with no practical experience. This creates the Indian policy makers to copy foreign rules and regulations on water and water pollution control to be imposed on the Indian industry without really understanding the various technological implications. With poor technical understanding, it would be easy for interpreting the rules in any manner the authorities prefer. This poses many challenges to the Indian industry as a whole!

Unless the competency and knowledge levels among the users, suppliers, policy makers and interpreters go hand in hand, this area would remain as a difficult one. 

The Clean Ganga Mission could also misfire just as its earlier version, the Ganga Action Plan in such a scenario!

This has no doubt affected the Indian efforts in improving the environmental developmental issues with regard to water and air. 

Indian companies can take challenges in water and waste water engineering and technologies. There are young Indian engineers who can take such challenges. Unfortunately, Indian technocrats, both in the private and public domains, do not have the managerial confidence to take up the challenges their own! That is precisely due to their lack of comprehensive understanding in this field!

If India still keeps looking to foreign nations for technologies on water and wastewater, it is because of the lack of confidence in its top decision making levels.

It would be interesting to watch the developments in India in this field in the years to come!

How Safe Is Your Drinking Water in India? Be Aware of These!

Water and Air are the two primary necessities naturally available to ensure life to sustain on earth. These two natural resources are also provided with certain levels of natural automatic processes to keep them safe for all living beings on earth, including humans.

But human population growth coupled with ever expanding human activities can cause these abundant natural resources to become polluted. Pollution of air and water can cause problems to human health. Thus air and water pollution has become an important issue for all nations of the world to give much attention. Environmental protection laws have become an important aspect of modern society.

India too has been giving much attention to environmental protection. It has also enacted several environmental protection laws and constituted several authorities to safeguard its air, water and land resources from becoming unsustainable on account of various hazards, including pollution.

View of a Poorly Maintained 

Drinking Water Pumping Station in India

In India, there is  the Central Pollution Control Board at the national level and the various state pollution control boards. Environmental statutes have become so stringent in the recent years that it is not so easy for any infrastructure or industrial project to take shape without going through many so called environmental protection related statutory hurdles. The hindrances have also created allegations of corruption ruling the roost with the Indian environmental regulations, rather than them honestly implemented under a balanced system of sustainable development, for the benefit of the people at large. 

In India there also exist independent environmental activist groups and non governmental agencies who also play an important role in deciding the environmental policies of the government. The Center for Science and Environment (CSE) is one such agency. But many such activist groups and organizations become too idealistic to be practical or balanced in their outlooks and approaches. Vested interests also might cause them to work out of focus occasionally. Using environmental issues as a guise for political gains is also not uncommon.

A Poorly Maintained Indian Drinking Water Treatment Plant

For example, there have been hues and cries in India against some companies using ground water as their resource for making and marketing aerated soft drinks. The agitation in Kerala spearheaded against the Coca-Cola company's Plachimada bottling plant in Palghat is a typical case of this kind.

Problems created by pollution is also a big opportunity for big economic activities, human creativity, business and big employment generation. Unfortunately, the Indian authorities and the Indian political leaders and the common people are blissfully unaware of this and seem to ignore the potentials of using this to a win-win situation for all.

For example let me take the example of drinking water supply in India. Water supply and sanitation are the fundamental  factors that govern the progress of any society. The fundamental job of any municipality or any city corporation is to ensure the supply of safe drinking water to the house holds, take care of the waste water and to address the issue of solid wastes. In olden days, Public Health Engineering was one of the most important departments entrusted with these tasks. Unfortunately, India has blissfully ignored this over the years!

Even well educated people in India are now blissfully unaware about the methods adopted by their municipalities and city corporations in managing these activities. Their elected representatives are also any better in possessing this awareness. With the advancement of human activities, the water supply and sanitation processes and its management have become more complex, calling for a higher degree of expertise and competency. Unfortunately, this aspect has been consistently getting neglected in India for the past couple of decades.

A well maintained Indian WTP Just After Commissioning

When industrial establishments, cities, towns and homes do not have proper waste disposal systems, the waste waters discharged into the ground and to the drainage systems (as available - artificial or natural) would deplete the nature's ability to revert it back to the original quality. When the waste water or sewage load is more than the natural capacity of restoration, the natural water bodies such as ground water, streams, rivers, ponds and lakes begin to become polluted. In such a scenario our natural sources for fresh water become perennially polluted. Our old and conventional methods of making safe drinking water may not yield safe drinking water any more, unless we invest more to modify our water treatment plants and facilities. In many instances, even costly water treatment facilities fail to yield good drinking water. Besides, the waste water from the water treatment plants also would become more difficult to manage. It soon develops as a technological vicious circle with no practical solutions!

In the United States of America, they have the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) empowered by various federal statutes including the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). The website of EPA provide the much needed information for the guidance of their citizens.

View of A Well Maintained 

Drinking Water Pumping Station in the USA

As against this, it would be interesting to note the various guidelines, laws, regulations and protocols that are said to be applicable in India with regard to water supply and sanitation. There are several of them and one can see them at a glance as compiled and provided in the website of the International Environmental Law Research Centre (IELRC).

The difference between what exists in the US and what exists in India is glaringly visible when you do an honest comparison. In India, there is no law that makes it mandatory for any one to ensure safe drinking water to the citizens. What exist are a set of half-cooked or impractical guidelines apparently worked out by several agencies without due understanding of the technical or practical issues involved!

Thus even the best water treatment plants in India that existed a couple of decades ago with reasonably good operation and maintenance practices are increasingly getting neglected over the years. There is a drastic reduction in the technical competence of the people who manage the existing water or waste water treatment facilities. Most water and waste water treatment facilities do not have any competent water analysts or the necessary water quality testing laboratories. What existed as some best facilities some decades ago have mostly become dilapidated or practically non-functional. The contradictory or vague or impractical guidelines and protocols have made the situation to slip from bad to the worst. Lack of awareness in the public coupled with administrative apathy has caused further damage.

One of the noteworthy examples of technical incompetence and managerial apathy in the area of waste water management resulting in a big failure was  the much fan-fared Ganga Action Plan of the government of India some years ago. Money in billions got spent without achieving the desired results and the River Ganges still remains as one of the worst polluted fresh water source for millions of people of India even now.

There is no difference in the technology or engineering of water treatment and management anywhere in the world. There is also no difference in the water testing or interpretation techniques. Water and waste water treatment technologies are also not such technologies where you need space or rocket scientists and engineers. But at the same time they also technical issues where technical expertise and experience matter a lot. In other words, any tom-dick-and-harry cannot be entrusted with the task of managing the water and waste water treatment systems. The technology and engineering involve much multi-disciplinary skills which need to be understood and addressed with due care by the authorities!

Modern water and waste water treatment requires knowledge in chemistry, hydraulics, civil engineering, chemical engineering, instrumentation and automation, toxicology, bio-chemistry, environmental laws, etc. It provides ample scope for engineers from all these fields to gain much practical experience and expertise. It also provides opportunities for employment generation and development of business.

Regrettably, India lacks the much needed technical expertise in this field in its top echelons of administrative hierarchy which is essential for formulating proper policies by the government. The mistakes of the past get repeated when attempts are repeated in the same manner as what had been done earlier! If Ganga Action Plan failed earlier, it could fail again if the authorities do not learn from the mistakes of the past. It is essential that conventional administrative procedures and systems need to be reworked with intelligent inputs from people having the necessary multidisciplinary expertise and innovative ideas in this field.

The most important aspect of making safe drinking water is to have more and more fresh raw water sources with minimal contamination as the input to the drinking water plants. Conventionally, drinking water treatment involves raw water lifting, screening, flocculation, sedimentation, filtration, disinfection, storage and distribution. When the raw water becomes polluted to some degree, the conventional treatment plants no more produce safe drinking water. For example, raw water contaminated with sewage containing soaps and detergents will not fully get rid of these contaminants when treated in the conventional treatment plant. The conventional chlorination treatment might even generate carcinogens in the drinking water that is produced from such raw waters contaminated by such organic chemicals.

Unlike in the past, most water treatment facilities in India are now operated and managed by people with relatively low skills and expertise. In many places, the concerned top authorities take the installation, operation and maintenance of water treatment facilities for granted. Many plants do not have the required level of competent manpower. A good majority of them have no facilities for water quality monitoring! Plants which are erected and commissioned with full facilities get degraded and dilapidated in a few years time due to the low priorities given by the authorities.

Water treatment facilities in India used to be considered as prime installations of national importance during the initial few decades after India's independence from the British rule. The British legacy was to consider these facilities with due diligence. Even in the 1980 when I joined my professional career, water treatment and public health engineering used to be an area of prime importance to the top managements of not only the municipalities but also of the large scale industries.

But things deteriorated in later years. I do not say that this situation is worrisome everywhere in India. But, in general things have deteriorated much. Water and waste water management technologies have advanced much in the recent years in many countries. Though some progressive private sector companies in India are making advantage of such technologies to a greater extent, this is not so in the case of the government departments and public sector industries due to either lack of awareness or on account of competency vacuums that has developed in recent years.

The general deterioration of piped drinking water supply quality has caused the proliferation of bottled mineral water companies. Packed mineral water in plastic bottles and pouches are now causing serious land pollution problems due to the empty bottles and pouches. 

Health conscious and well-to-do city dwellers no more consider their piped water supply as safe. Domestic water purifiers are doing roaring business now! How safely these provide good quality water can only be guessed as there is no facility available to the users to check the quality of water!

In my opinion consumers of water need to enhance their general awareness in these areas. In the present times, even the sick people no more take their medical doctors for granted. Therefore it is a good idea to gain some knowledge about the manner in which the drinking water comes to you and also the manner in which it is finally disposed.

Those interested to get some basic ideas about water, the US-EPA site is a good educator. 

As far as India is concerned, I earnestly hope that our new government would initiate some better systems to address the various issues involved with drinking water treatment, distribution, sanitation, waste water treatment, disposal and re-use, in the days to come.

Let us hope that our democratic local governments and other such authorities responsible for providing safe drinking water to the people, take these things seriously and initiate actions for Swacch Pani (clean, safe water) in order to make the recently started Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Campaign) a remarkable and sustainable success!

Let us also hope that our environmental authorities of the central and state levels too wake up to learn some lessons from the developed nations!

What Are the Things to be Checked Before Buying a Flat or Apartment in India?

Real estate business has flourished much in India now. Both individual builders and real estate companies are active in most of the cities of India, especially those having a population of 100,000 or above.

Flats (sometimes also called apartments) in high rise buildings have now become common in the Indian cities just as in the highly populated cities of the world. Indians, especially the well educated and well earning middle class have accepted the culture of living in apartment homes in high rise buildings. 

More and more new features are offered by the builders and developers of flats to woo the customers. Depending on the city, location, construction features and luxuries as provided, buying a flat in India costs any thing between Rs.2000 to Rs.20,000 per sq.ft living space. While the cost of construction is more or less similar throughout India with a variation of  of say, 10-20 % from the average, the exorbitant margins above that exist in some localities and cities due to the high cost of land and its future escalation potential. 

Flats having 2 bedrooms, one common living and dining hall, one kitchen with 2 bathrooms are commonly designated as 2BHK types and those having 3 bedrooms, hall and kitchen are called 3BHK types. These are the most common types. These flats may or may not have additional facilities like additional utility space, an extra bath room, one or two or three balconies, etc. Floor area (also called carpet area) of bed rooms typically vary from a low of 100 sq.ft to a medium of 144 sq.ft  to a high of 156 sq.ft. Carpet areas of halls typically vary from 180 sq.ft to 420 sq.ft and kitchen areas vary from 48 sq.ft to 100 sq.ft. Bathroom sizes vary from 30-48 sq.ft.

The best way to understand the size of the flat is to measure its carpet area (the internal usable space excluding the walls, ventilation or pipe shafts). The carpet area of a 2BHK flat may vary from 550-900 sq.ft while that of a 3BHK flat may be between 650-1250 sq.ft. However, builders normally adopt other yardsticks to designate the area of the flat. Sometimes, the flat area is indicated as the built up area ( which is the overall outer area including the walls). At times it is indicated as the super built up area which includes the built up area plus an apportioning of all the common areas in the building divided among the total number of flats. The super built up area of a flat having a carpet area of 550 sq.ft could then be easily indicated as having 750 sq.ft which would be difficult for the buyer to verify. 

Real estate builders are known to exploit the buyers based on the manipulated or misguiding flat area projections. They may provide some plans of the apartment with internal dimensions. However, they would not show how the areas add up to become the projected flat area based on which the basic price of the flat is fixed. The government is reportedly considering to make the carpet area as the mandatory yardstick for all real estate developers, to over come such clandestine activities. Anyway, it is a good idea to get this aspect verified properly without any ambiguity before the deal is settled.

It is a good idea to check all the relevant approvals that the builder has obtained to construct and sell the properties. If possible a copy of all the approved drawings and other statutory approval documents may be obtained from the builders for records.

Now let us examine the technical aspects of the multistory building in which the flat is located. Many people in India are now-a-days get carried away by superstitious pseudoscience popularly known as Vaastu. Personally, I do not believe in such things and I consider it as some thing irrational. However, these are associated with one's personal belief system and therefore I leave it to the decision of the individual whether to check for vaastu or not.

Whether you take time and effort to check vaastu compliance or not, what aspects you should really check for a good living in your flat after you take possession of it are what I would like to discuss further.

The first thing is to check the water supply arrangements that the builder is planning for the building. Check whether the builders have got an assurance from the municipal authorities to have the water supply provided from the existing water supply network. Most probably, this would be missing. The builder might be telling that he has enough bore wells with enough ground water. The builders representatives may even show you the abundance of water that is being supplied from the tube wells that supply water for the building during its construction stage. But remember, this bore wells may not be enough to cater to all the residents when all the flats get occupied. Water would become one of your problems after you have established your flat as your home some years later. In most cities and towns of India, the local municipal authorities are too incompetent to provide good drinking water to the multistory buildings in later years, even while they allow the builders to construct and sell flats in such high rise buildings!

Assuming that there is some assured source of water supply (including water supplied through road tankers) the next thing to check is how this water is being planned for distribution in the building to the individual flats. Normally, there should be one underground closed tank preferably made of RCC with enough capacity to store water received from various sources including the bore wells. If the storage capacity of this tank gives an average of at least 500 litres per flat it could be considered quite okay.[for example, if the building has 50 flats, then the underground common water tank should have a minimum storage capacity of 50x500=25000 litres or 25 cubic meter]

Water from the ground level has to be pumped using pumps so that it is distributed to the individual flats located at various levels above ground level. Hence pumps are required to be installed for this purpose which draw water from the underground tank. Though there are many ways to do the water distribution, the best way to adopt to ensure 24x7 water supply  in the individual flats is by pumping the water first to over head tanks installed at the roof top of the building. The roof top tanks also should have a capacity which is preferably not less than the ground tank capacity. From the roof top tanks pipes are laid to the individual flats below through which water flows by gravity. There are a few things which need to be specially noted in this.

First the water supply pumps which have to supply the water from the ground tank to the over head tanks. The flow capacity , the pressure that these pumps generate and the number of pumps provided as standby are very important. I would now explain it with the help of a typical example:

Suppose that the building under consideration has 12 floors including the ground floor. The average roof height maintained in normal Indian apartment building is approximately 3.3 meters. Thus the roof top would be at a height of about 40 meters (12x3.3~). Normally the bottom level of the underground reservoir would be 5 meters below ground level and the overhead tank would have a height of about 5 meters. Thus the total height through which the water is required to be pumped would be 40+5+5=50 meter. Additionally the pump has to overcome the friction that is caused by the pipes and should have enough margin pressure to deliver water. Giving proper allowances to that, we need a pump which should be able to generate at least 60 meters of head which is approximately 6 kg per sq.cm pressure. 

The pump should have a pumping capacity in such a way that it could fill the overhead tank at a rate more than the average total consumption of water from it. During the peak hours of the morning, the water consumption in a typical 2BHK and 3BHK flat be an average of about 250 litres per hour or 0.25 cu.m/hr. Thus the peak rate of consumption for a 50 unit building could be 50x0.25=12.5 cu.m/hr. Thus the pump selected should have a capacity preferably not less than 12.5 cu.m/hr. This pump would be sufficient to fill the overhead tank from an empty state within 2 hours. This pump with a flow capacity of 12.5 and pressure of 6 kg would require a motor having a power of approximately 5 HP. There should be at least one additional pump installed having the same capacity which should serve as the standby in the event one of the pump is required to be taken out for breakdown repairs. Remember, the pump is the life line of water to the high rise building. If there is no pump to supply water to the top floors, life in the flat would be a nightmare!

Builders and their designers would some time try to save some money by installing lower capacity pumps than what I have indicated in the above example. In that case, the pumps would take more time to fill the tanks and are required to be operated for more hours. A lower HP rated pump would not give any real saving on electricity to the flat dwellers or their association. But it might reduce some initial cost saving to the builder. However, this saving is not very remarkable. The selection of pump capacities and the water supply designs often go wrong because of the technical incompetency of the engineers who work for the builders. 

The next aspect to be given importance is the provision of reliable level gauges for the underground and the overhead tanks and their linking to the pumps for automatic operation of the pumps. Such provisions would greatly help in reducing the wastage of water and the manpower that is required to operate the water supply systems of the high rise building. Make sure that your builder is giving due attention to this aspect.

When water is gravity fed from the over head tank to the flats below, the top floors would get lower pressure in their taps. The highest pressure would be at the lower floor flats. This uneven pressure has to be regulated with the help of suitable pressure reducing devices installed in the respective pipelines. If this is not done, the high pressure in the lower floors may even cause the water taps to fly out or rupture due to high water pressure.

Some builders or their water supply design engineers may not provide individual water supply lines to each flat which could be regulated from a common source point ( say the roof top). When flats are handed over to the buyers, it is the responsibility of the flat owners association to manage the common facilities. It would be difficult for such associations to regulate or stop water to those residents who are not paying their dues properly when individual water regulation valves are not provided. Absence of such a facility would also cause several flat owners facing problems together when some repairs are to be carried out for any one flat.

The next aspect to be looked in to is the type and numbers of electric lifts that are provided in the building. Never allow the builder to use the lifts for completing their construction work. The buyers should insist for newly installed lifts from reputed makes with all safety feature and service facilities in writing from the builder. In most flats in India, especially in the non metro cities, problems caused by non working lifts are very common. Your life would be miserable if you are to climb more than 5 floors every day due to a non working lift. People normally overlook this aspect. Lifts that are not proper are also a major cause of fatal accidents in high rise buildings. So, make sure that you and your co-buyers are aware of this and are capable of resolving this when you are to manage the show yourself when the builder quit the place after all his flats are sold out. Lifts are expensive machinery. The cost difference between cheap makes and reputed makes is too wide. I have seen many builders cheating the flat buyers on this issue.

It is important to give attention to the structural strength of the building and its construction quality. However as per the prevailing laws the builders are responsible for it for 80 years. They know if any thing untoward happens they are likely to go to jail. Hence, normally no builder would like to overlook this aspect. But, lack of experience and expertise of the builder and his construction group could cause many defects in the building as constructed. 

One should check how the builder has planned to dispose the sewage and the solid wastes that would be generated in the flats. Fire safety is another thing. Many builders do not have expert engineers in their roles to plan and execute these issues properly. It is a common practice in India that the statutory authorities are often and easily bribed that they give all such clearances without any hitch. It would be better for the buyer to ask for more details about these aspects and get himself convinced.

Insist for the layout plan of the building with the internal movement spaces and the parking spaces. In the drawings these might appear as okay. However, it is a good idea to check their dimensions to see whether such spaces are enough to turn and park your cars without facing difficulties. Also it is a better idea to get the parking space reserved for your flat in a written agreement.

It is now common that many builders are wooing the buyers with many luxuries. Swimming pools, play grounds, luxury fittings and finishes are all in the offering that make the flats to be like five star hotels. However, the five star hotels are managed and maintained by trained and experienced staff who are paid decently. When such facilities are offered by the builders initially, it is a good thing to check how these facilities would be maintained through out the future years with regard to their management and its recurring costs. 

Many people buy flats as an investment opportunity. In the metro cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and in many other tier two cities, the flat costs are now at such high levels that one may not get the desired appreciation in the future as it used to be in the past. Buying flats in remote places where it is difficult for you to look it after could become a headache for you later on various counts. It is better you think about these too before taking your final decision. Remember, there are several thousands of unsold flats held by many builders in the major cities of India.

Unless the government changes its laws that enable the owners and builders to rent out their apartments, houses and flats without any risk, it would not be much beneficial to own flats as investments or as an income source. I had written about it earlier.[ read it here!]

You may also read these related articles that I wrote earlier in this context [ article-1 ; article-2]  
  

Water Supply , Sanitation and Solid Waste Management : Why does India Fair Poorly ?

While I was an engineering student pursuing my chemical engineering, I was thinking that some day I would be doing my career in some chemical process industries which produced petroleum products, fertilizers, insecticides, bulk pharmaceuticals, industrial chemicals, etc. I had never imagined that I would spent a good deal of my career in water supply, sanitation, water treatment or waste water engineering. 

I began my professional career in a captive thermal power station of an integrated steel plant. My job was to manage the production of de-mineralized (DM) water for steam generation in the boilers. The steam is used for rotating the turbo-generator machines which produced electricity. Steam is also required for various other heating and process applications in the steel plant. After its thermal energy is used up, steam gets condensed to become condensate water which is recycled to the boilers again for generating super heated steam. The losses of steam and water in the boiler water system required addition of make up water in the form of DM water. Quality of water and steam is very critical for the smooth operation of high pressure boilers and high speed steam turbines. Hence, all aspects of water chemistry is given due regards and attention in a properly managed thermal power station. My first job helped me to understand the nature of water and water treatment in much detail, including the chemical quality management aspects. In reality my function was of dual nature, because I was required to look after both the production processes and the quality control aspects of the chemical testing laboratory.

My second innings in my professional career was as a water supply and sanitation design engineer, a job conventionally done by civil engineers. I considered this job a bit inferior to my status initially. But soon I realized that this field is essentially sanitation engineering which is a very important aspect of city and town management and also one of the most neglected engineering area in modern India. My senior was an en experienced civil engineer who spent almost whole of his life time in this field. It was not much difficult for me to master the conventions of practical designs of this field and there was opportunities for me to improve upon the conventions because of my chemical engineering background.

Later I had opportunities to function as lead design engineer and consulting engineer for many projects involving water supply, cooling water systems,  water treatment, water softening , gas cleaning, effluent treatment, bio chemical treatment, coal chemical processing, etc which gave me much opportunities to expand my experience and knowledge in interdisciplinary engineering. Most importantly, insights into the way of functioning of the Indian system with its complex ,contradictory and vague rules , statutes and influences have also been acquired concurrently.

All these helped me to understand and analyse the root causes of the systemic lethargy in India to a great extent, though no one ever required me to do such a thing !

I have seen some municipal corporations in India taking over three decades to implement even mundane water supply projects which could have been done in one or two years time. I also find many cities and towns with no water supply and sanitation services. Regrettably many cities and towns of India also do not have any plans for making such facilities in the near future. Even progressive cities like Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of the most literate state of India, have failed in implementing and managing good waste handling and disposal facilities.

Any developed and progressive country can perhaps call itself developed when the majority of its citizens are able to get good drinking water in sufficient quantities and also when they enjoy decent sanitation and waste disposal services.

Unfortunately, India stands at a pathetic low level of development when water supply and sanitation norms are concerned. [I suggest those interested to read this wikipedia article : Drinking water supply and sanitation in India ] Waste disposal facilities are virtually non existent. 

As a professional engineer with decades of experience in this area, I feel ashamed of such a pathetic situation in this country.

It is not very difficult to design and implement good water supply systems and sanitation systems linked to effective municipal effluent treatment plant systems for any cities or communities having a population of 5000 or more. So also is the case with solid waste management.  However, very few cities and communities in India have such systems.

What are the reasons for this kind of situation in India?

Why is it that the Indian leaders and administrators do not feel ashamed of such deplorable conditions of their country?

In my opinion, such a situation arise out of many things, all linked to each other in one way or the other.

The following are some of the main reasons as I see it:

1. Excepting a few large metropolitan cities, the city and municipal corporations have degraded to become play grounds of local politicians. As a result, the bureaucratic organizations that are required to assist the democratic city governments have become lethargic or non committal or ineffective to do any proper planning or city management.Often, the city administrations are headed by pliable or incompetent bureaucrats who are posted by the state administration as per political compulsions and priorities. Besides, the personnel and staff that get in to these administrative organizations of the municipalities and corporations are selected without any due consideration of their specialist experience or qualifications that they soon become vested interest groups. Specialist wings of the city administration such as the town planning, public health engineering, water supply and sewerage, public works, etc become side tracked to such an extent that their specialists and engineers no more are required to show any professional competence. It becomes all the more convenient for the incompetent political heads and bureaucratic chiefs to have such incompetent technical people as their subordinates that the former never feel the necessity to improve the competency of the latter. Soon, for any infrastructural development involving water supply, water treatment, sewage treatment, solid waste management etc the political heads and bureaucratic chiefs become the decision makers including those matters that are purely technical in nature. Such decisions eventually create nonviable or inferior schemes and projects which would either never get fully implemented or commissioned for the benefit of the people. Such technical incompetence soon creeps in to the operation and maintenance areas as well.

2. Lack of coordination among various governmental agencies and departments.

3. Lack of respect of contractual obligations. Indians are infamous for this kind of an attitude. Once contracts are placed, the Indian authorities at all levels seem to create undue problems for the contractors mostly for personal benefits. Delays of payments and works on account of such objections created by the officers and staff of the city governments often create a situation that good EPC contract firms with expertise and experience in the relevant fields avoid taking up such contracts.

4. Indian top authorities are keen to keep all major decisions to themselves even when they are not competent to take such decisions. Delegation of powers exist only in theory and not in practice. The root cause of this situation is the eagerness to get importance for unfair gains.

5. Incompetence of vigilance personnel and authorities to judge technical issues. Often such a situation makes the technical personnel from taking firm and sound decisions for the overall good of public projects. Again, this situation arises out of the lack of vision of the law makers who create such rules and regulations without due consideration of expert opinions. In my opinion, it is not a good practice to allow non technical authorities to find fault with technical decisions and file vigilance cases based on such findings. Even when there is a prima facie technical error, it has to be based on the recommendations of an expert technical committee.

6. In India, disciplines of engineers do not carry much value once an engineer gets posted. It makes the engineers who are trained in some discipline not getting the appropriate jobs and making the particular engineering discipline becoming a non preferable one for fresh students eventually creating a shortage of trained man power in certain areas. A typical example is the shortage of sanitation engineers or environmental engineers in the Indian city administrations.

7. Indian engineering institutions and technical universities plan their engineering curricula quite arbitrarily without due research on the requirements of the potential employers and their needs. The courses are planned based on the aspirations of the youngsters who are pretty unaware of the usefulness of the courses that they are going to study.

8. Experienced engineers have practically no say in the selection and deployment of fresh engineers within their organizations in India. This function is almost entirely decided by non technical people who have no idea about the work of engineers. This creates adverse imbalances in engineering expertise within even engineering organisations. Technical groups of city administrations are no exception.

9. Technical groups in India which are required to do collective engineering tasks are made up of technical personnel having incompatible capabilities and competence. The continued practice of reservations, favoritism, etc play an important role in this. The result is failure of the group to perform effectively even when there are exceptionally good individuals in the group.

10. Lack of consistent opportunities for EPC firms to maintain their expertise on a long term basis. There is no guarantee of work in areas such as water and waste water engineering, solid waste management, etc from the local authorities. The allocation of budgets and funds are erratic. This causes much uncertainties for EPC firms to maintain their expert engineers and technicians on a long term basis. Much bunching of work also happens making all work to suffer of time schedules and quality . EPC entrepreneurs try to maintain their technical organizations without enough numbers of permanent experts and managing the show somehow by outsourcing or entering into temporary understandings to form consortia or similar other gimmicks making a mess of things that eventually everything proceeds without any proper direction or planning.

11. India now has a number of so-called environmentalists who are text book experts and have no practical experience or expertise. They copy impractical norms and quality parameters and make big noises of not achieving certain values of quality parameters with regard to environmental quality norms on water, treated effluents, land fills, air , etc. These so called experts often make things complicated and often provide much fodder for the non technical media and the public. In the developed countries, often decisions on such things are taken on the basis of best achievable technology (BAT) and best practical technology (BPT) . In India, text book experts are least concerned about practical aspects and costs involved. This compels many organizations to spend huge sums of money for practically achieving no results, especially in the areas of water treatment, effluent treatment and air pollution control.

12. Indian organizations do not allow planned development of expertise in engineering and technology. Whatever experience the engineers gain happen randomly and in much unplanned manner. Hence it is not very easy to identify and evaluate the real experience and expertise of engineers. Again this evaluation is left to the whims and fancies of non technical personnel, making many experienced engineers wasting their times without actually contributing to works where they could do it well or important engineering assignments getting in to the hands of inexperienced engineers and non technical leaders bull dozing them to commit gross errors.

13. There is no political will in India to make these services privatized allowing  reasonable charges to be levied from even the affluent class of urban citizens. There is no reason to fear that the affluent urban citizens are so selfish and ignorant that they resist such facilities that would make their lives better. However, the present political atmosphere is such that every good move by one political party is opposed by the other parties who are not in power. This kind of attitude can change only when the mind set of the politicians change and they think collectively for the citizens and their country rather than for themselves.

14. Indian cities develop and grow in the most unscientific manner due to the absence of effective town planning. Very few cities have free spaces earmarked for development of infrastructural facilities for water treatment, waste water treatment, waste processing, laying of pipe lines, etc. Even after 60 years of independence and even after the whole world has progressed, the Indian authorities feel that these are important matters which require firm actions. Ministries handling urban development, housing, water, environment, etc all seem to work in different directions. Few Indian citizens are aware of the existence of such ministries or their objectives. Incidentally these ministries keep changing every now and then with different names and objectives making any sustained actions never taking place with regard to water supply, sanitation and waste disposal in urban or rural India.

15. No one India seems to be in control of planning and execution of infrastructural projects with regard to water supply, sanitation and solid waste management for the Indian cities. It could perhaps be a good idea to notify the names of the key drivers of such projects with their responsibilities and authorities known to the public.

16. India has an acute shortage of design and engineering personnel who can formulate and plan an infrastructural project on water supply and waste water management for the cities and to do the detailed engineering works involved. As of now, India may be good in developing computer software, but it is not good in works involving conventional and core engineering due to its  expertise and capacity continuously on the decline in this area for the last many years. Serious thinking and corrective steps at the highest levels only can save India from becoming a slave to other nations in the future. One of the reasons for this shortage is the reluctance of brilliant engineers to take up this career in India because in this country being in this field of work they earn little respect now and of the prospects of being at the receiving end to be bull dozed by their not-so-brilliant colleagues who chanced to climb up the career by taking up other easier routes. No wonder why the brilliant IITians of India prefer to become IIMees by doing an unlearning of their difficult engineering- a thing perhaps never happen in a developed nation !

As some one has recently written in the Economic Times, this situation can be rectified if the politicians of India think about their country for a moment. It is possible if the bureaucrats think of their country for a moment instead of spending time on wasteful tours and meetings and lamenting on the inefficiency of their political masters. In my opinion the latter are better placed to correct the situation if they want. They have a greater responsibility as per the Indian constitution. If they collectively decide to make India a better place, no politician can ruin that. That is the safeguard they have as per the constitution. If politicians are willing to support them, things could move much better. Again, there is much need to enhance the confidence of the engineers working in core areas in this country and their confidence levels. Without them, neither the politicians, nor the bureaucrats can hardly achieve anything!

That was what Singapore had done. That is what China has been doing. That is what the developed nations have been doing.

India needs to learn how to honor and motivate its engineers to perform. If not, much of those brains are all going to migrate to places where they can use their brains effectively and work with some prestige.

It is a big opportunity to prove India's capabilities first in Water Supply, Sanitation and Solid Waste Management and making India filth-less and hygienic before trying to make the missiles, bombs and the rockets using borrowed technologies. This field has enormous potential for job generation. It also has enormous potential to generate income for the government.

I know the stories of many young men from India who never got any worth while employment in India, getting good paying employment in small county water treatment and sewage treatment plants in the USA. If the US could pay over $ 5000 per month to an Indian born supervisor of a water treatment plant of a county of 5000 odd population, why can't India do it ? USA is rich, because the majority there think big. The moment the Americans think like the Indians they too are going to be doomed !

Think India, think! Think and act the way those progressive peoples are doing! Remove your narrow mindedness and your greed and your unjustified fears! You have immense potentials to come out of the pathetic conditions. Even those of you who like to exploit the nation from behind the curtains- it is better to change. You too would benefit a lot than you do at present!

Improving the health of the citizens is good for every one. Even for those who have made vast fortunes in India and thinking of staying in alien countries for breathing well.

And what I said above may be applicable to all other fields as well!

[Please also take some time to come back and read my previous  blogs and blogs on other topics as well. You can reach to those by clicking the links in this page. I would be happy if you take some time to express your views using the comments facility down below. Please  use the same comment facility to interact with me for any doubts or clarifications that you might have. Here is the page link that gives the   list of all my blogs  where you can open all my blog titles.]