India

About Clearford India

Clearford India Private Limited (Clearford India) is a subsidiary of Clearford Water Systems Inc. and provider of innovative water and wastewater infrastructure solutions and services.

Established in 2012, Clearford India has its primary business office located in Pune, with offices in Ahmedabad and Chennai Clearford is actively seeking opportunities for deployment of its proprietary sanitation technology, Clearford One™, in established and growing communities in India.

Please contact us to discuss how your project can benefit from Clearford’s innovative water and wastewater solutions.

Clearford in India

Clearford has developed an innovative and practical solution for the vast sanitation challenges in India, such as low water usage and intermittent availability of electricity for pumping and treatment. The Company’s primary offering, Clearford One, is a packaged decentralized communal sewage system that has lower capital, operating and maintenance costs than conventional systems. Clearford has refined and proven its proprietary Clearford One technology over more than 25 years of in-the-field operating performance.

The Clearford system is proven to be effective in India and is ideally suited to bring adequate sanitation to approximately 600 million Indian citizens who live without improved sanitation. Clearford One has many advantages over conventional sewerage collection and treatment systems, and for the first time enables the affordable and sustainable deployment of large scale communal sanitation across India.

Clearford One is well suited for:

  • Residential townships,
  • Urban areas,
  • Villages and towns, and
  • Resorts and campuses.

The Challenge

The majority of people in India live in rural villages, small towns, and along the edges of India’s growing cities. These places have many common features that present challenges for sustainable sanitary servicing, including:

  • Organic unplanned growth, presenting challenges for infrastructure planning and construction;
  • Low water supply, making it difficult to transport sewage solids through conventional sewers;
  • Intermittent or no availability of electricity, requiring off-the-grid technologies;
  • Limited or no private sanitation facilities, encouraging open defecation practices; and
  • Social barriers related to the use of sanitation, slowing down the adoption of sanitary services.

The Clearford One Solution

Clearford One is a proprietary sewage collection and treatment system that overcomes the challenges of how to sustain sewerage networks in areas of low water supply, while helping to mitigate the loss of life and income earning opportunity caused by illness.

Clearford One works on the principle of decentralized wastewater management and has three major components:

  • ClearDigest Smart Digester tanks,
  • ClearConvey network of sealed HDPE piping, and
  • ClearRecover sewage treatment plant (STP) dedicated to augmenting available water resources and the reuse of treated water for irrigation.

Clearford also offers a fourth component that is often overlooked in sanitation solutions for India—private sanitation facilities, such as toilets, showers and wash basins. The design and integration of these facilities is critical in promoting the successful adoption of sanitary servicing where safety and social barriers exist to healthy sanitation practices.

These components work together to form Clearford One, which provides a solution to the sanitation challenges in India by:

  • Allowing for flexible deployment to retrofit existing communities;
  • Operating with low power and water requirements;
  • Providing modern financially sustainable sanitary servicing for a variety of urban and rural communities; and
  • Delivering sanitation under a consultative model that involves, educates and engages local communities in the process.

It is estimated that at least 70% of all diseases in India are related to water contamination and poor sanitation.

Tate et al., “Disease and economic burden of rotavirus diarrhea in India,” Vaccine, vol. 27, no. 5, pp. F18-F24, Nov. 20, 2009.

Projects and Programs in India

Jambudiyapura, Gujarat

The first Clearford One system in India has been operating in Jambudiyapura since May 2016, making it the first open-defecation free tribal village in Gujarat. Complete wastewater servicing was constructed for 53 homes including new private household toilet and washroom facilities, Clearford’s proprietary sanitary sewer system, and a low-maintenance constructed wetland for wastewater treatment to agricultural irrigation reuse regulatory standards. The project was funded through a corporate social responsibility (CSR) partnership that also delivered public education to residents for improved sanitation and public health, as well as training of villagers in the operation and maintenance of the new wastewater system.

Clearford for CSR

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is mandated by the Government of India. Clearford One is recognized as an opportunity to deploy CSR spending to maximize social and environmental impact in a sustainable way, and it contributes to achieving the Swachh Bharat Mission objectives for improved sanitation across India.

Clearford’s solution is fully customizable for a variety of CSR applications including:

  • Sanitation for schools,
  • Rural sanitation for villages,
  • Peri-urban sewerage systems, and
  • Mixed land use sanitary servicing.

These packages deliver highly affordable systems that include:

  • Private sanitation facilities with toilets, showers and wash basins;
  • Clearford One sewage system;
  • Recyclable clean water for irrigation or other reuse;
  • One year operation and training program for the local operator.

Figure 1: The first Clearford CSR project was implemented with funding from IL&FS through its subsidiary Gujarat Road & Infrastructure Co. Ltd. (GRICL) with the Gujarat Government. Learn more.

Sanitation for Schools

The Government of India has identified toilets for schools as one of the nation’s highest priorities. While the construction of toilet blocks is relatively straightforward, it is the long term management of the concentrated sewage at school sites that is the biggest challenge—and Clearford has the solution.

It is estimated that inadequate sanitation translates to Rs. 324,000 crore in economic losses per year to the Indian economy.

A. Tyagi, “Inadequate sanitation costs India RS. 2.4 trillion (US$53.8 billion),” Economic impacts of inadequate sanitation in India, Water and sanitation program. Washington, DC: World Bank.

Advantages of Clearford in India

Works with low water supply

Clearford One makes it possible to install communal sewerage in communities with low water supply, where conventional sewers often fail from blockages caused by solids accumulation in pipes.

Easy to build with local labour and materials

Each Clearford One system is designed for local deployment. Pipes, tanks and other materials are locally sourced, and simple construction methods are specified to encourage local labour employment.

Eliminates soil and water contamination

Soak pits and septic tanks contribute to sewage contamination of local soil, surface water and groundwater resources. Clearford One eliminates this problem and recycles clean water to the environment.

Low cost operation and maintenance

Compared to conventional systems, Clearford One requires less labour, electricity, sludge handling and chemical usage—making it less expensive and easier to operate and maintain.

 

Contact Clearford India

Contact Person:
Sanjay Deshpande
Executive Director & Head of Operations
+91 9960645684
sdeshpande@clearford.com