Chandigarh: ‘Urban Adda 2026’ was organised by Gurujal at the Jacaranda Hall of India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. The event, themed “Circularity for Water Security,” saw detailed deliberations on how Indian cities can manage water as a circular resource rather than merely as a utility, promoting water conservation, reduced consumption, greater reuse and groundwater recharge to address challenges such as water scarcity and flooding.
During the event, Dr Satbir Singh Kadian, EIC-cum-Principal Director, HIRMI, put forward several key suggestions for moving the country from unregulated water extraction towards circular water use. He said water conditions vary across regions, as Gurugram shows: groundwater levels at urban sites fell from 0.08 metres to 2.34 metres within a single year. Therefore, regulators cannot rely on a single nationwide model and need to work across three key structural dimensions.
On the second dimension, he emphasised learning from successful models across states. The PPP anchor-offtaker models in Nagpur and Chennai have demonstrated how industrial demand can turn sewage into a source of municipal revenue. The decentralised treatment models in Delhi and Bengaluru show that localised treatment can reduce transportation costs and directly recharge local aquifers.
