Besides the scarcity of water resources, its contamination is a great cause for concern, too. In the US, around 40 per cent of the rivers are so heavily polluted that they can't be swum in, let alone be used for extracting drinking water. Eighty percent of the illnesses in the developing world can be traced to polluted drinking water. Some 25 million people die of water-borne diseases each year. Considering the water quality in India, new techniques of purification are always welcome. That is a gap that a German firm and its Indian collaborator want to fill. Standing at their demonstration facility at Enviro 98, the Seventh World Environment Congress, B Kumar, CEO, Akatec, collaborators of Umwelt & Wassertechnologie, promises cost-effective purification of water.

Branded as Aquapur, the patented technology breaks the water molecule into hydrogen and oxygen. ``Earlier, water processing was carried out through filtration, active carbonisation, ultra-violet radiation and reverse osmosis. What we do is split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen, oxidise all impurities and further purify them with activated carbon. After this, the already purged water is cleansed further through UV treatment, as a protection device,'' he says.

Isn't UV treatmentharmful for human health? ``Not at all. What remains after the first three phases of electrolysis are the minerals essential for the intrinsic character of water, very close to the original form,'' claims Kumar.

There is a strong German presence among the exhibitors at Enviro 98. Besides private entrepreneurs, the German Federal Environmental Agency is exhibiting state-of-the-art environmental technologies. Also, there is the Leipzig-based International Transfer Centre for Environmental Technologies (ITCET), a subsidiary of the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce, which was instrumental in getting German firms to the fair.

Kumar does not specify any target audience for Aquapur. ``Anybody who is interested in making purified drinking water available to the masses will be interested in it. The technology will be economical when compared to those prevalent in India today. For instance, reverse osmosis needs an initial investment of anything between Rs 50 lakh and Rs 1 crore. Aquapur will be marketed atRs 7 lakh for 1,000 litres per hour,'' he explains. Kumar also claims that Aquapur systems are energy saving. ``Our systems work at very low power--they have low-energy consumption rates that make them inexpensive. A plant producing a daily 2.5 cubic metres of drinking water requires just 25 watt/hour,'' he explains. ``The technology is one of the few in the exhibition that will be introduced in the country. After the Rio Summit in 1992, the so-called developed nations agreed to the transfer of the latest technology to Third World countries, and that is how the International Transfer Centre for Environmental Technologies came into being,'' says Dr Ganesh Shankar, area manager, (environ-ment and technology), Deutsch-Indische Handelskammer.

``India is a potential supermart for environmental products. Looking at the quality of water in a few villages around Delhi, we felt that this was the appropriate technology for purifying water. The only question is the affordability of the technique,'' quips ReginaSiegmund, chief executive, Umwelt & Wassertechnologie.

``We need to graduate from end-of-the pipe technologies to innovative cleansing processes. It has to be backed by cleaner production techniques, of course,'' feels Shankar.

``It should be the right balance between efficient management of water and proper disposal,'' offers German Bernd Kreuscher of the Federal Environmental Agency.

Elaborating on the logistics of waste water treatment in Germany, Friedman Koch, general manager of the Bonn-based Association of Private Waste Water Management says, ``Compact design to keep space requirements to the minimum, low noise and odour emissions and low investment and operation costs to reduce the financial burden on the citizens are what one looks for in a good water treatment plant.''

Measuring up to these parameters will be a priority for all those eyeing the biggest chunk of the $500 million Indian environment market--water processing techniques at $350 million.