“Seeking guidance from NSI, sugar Industry has already taken many initiatives which has resulted in considerable improvement with reference to fresh water consumption, waste water discharge and its quality as indicated by specific Bio-chemical Oxygen Demand ((BOD) loading during last six crushing seasons.

 

Comparing the figures of 2017-18 with 2022-23 for 147 sugar factories situated in Ganga basin, it shows that the average fresh water requirement has reduced from 155 liter/ton to 77 liter/ton of sugarcane, effluent discharge from 190 liter/ton to 135 liter/ton of sugarcane and BOD loading from 0.0065 kg/ton to 0.0028 kg/ton of sugarcane,” said Professor Narendra Mohan, director at NSI.

 

“However, there is further scope for improvement and the institute has the vision to further reduce fresh water consumption by adopting innovative technology for minimizing steam requirement and recycling waste water after cost effective treatment,” he added.

 

“Now to meet changing market requirements, sugar industry needs to adopt different processes for making sugar of desired qualities for which different techniques need to be used. Because of this, various requirements including fresh water consumption also varies and in some cases also becomes higher. With the help of NSI we would like to implement a charter for keeping our fresh water requirements lower and ensuring quality and quantity of effluent as per norms,” said Deepak Guptara, secretary general at UPSMA.

 

For the past 40 years, farmers in the Jaitpur and Gadhwara villages in India have been unable to grow crops due to the pollution of the Bandi River. The river has become contaminated with untreated industrial waste from the textile industry, rendering the agricultural fields infertile. The underground water in the area is also highly toxic. The farmers have complained to authorities and raised the issue in court, but have yet to receive any relief or compensation. As a result, many farmers have been forced to work as laborers in nearby factories to support their families.

 

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has implemented Digital Consent Acquisition (DCA) under TCCCP Regulation 2018 to combat spam messages and calls. Principal Entities (PEs) such as banks, financial institutions, and businesses must obtain fresh consent from users before sending any commercial communication. The consent data will be shared on a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) Platform for scrubbing by all Access Providers. TRAI has also outlined the process for businesses to seek consent and register customer unwillingness to receive consent-seeking messages. Telcos have already been instructed to move all commercial messaging to the DLT platform.

 

Actor Kamal Hassan celebrated his 69th birthday by donating an atmospheric water generator called VayuJal to the Institute of Child Health in Chennai. The system, which can produce 500 liters of water per day, collects humidity from the atmosphere and converts it into drinking water after purification and mineralization. The generator will supplement the water supply in the hospital, which currently relies on an RO unit set up by an NGO.