The Pandesara industrial estate in south Gujarat having more than 700 industrial units, including textile processing units, weaving units, engineering units, chemical units and other ancillary units etc. A 110 textile processing units will be for the first in the country will be making use of recycled water for processing unfinished synthetic fabrics, including saris and dress materials.

The textile processing units in the city's biggest Pandesara GIDC industrial area will start receiving around 40 million litres per day (MLD) of recycled water from Surat Municipal Corporation's (SMC) Tertiary Treatment Plant (TTP) at Bamroli by this month-end which has been set up at a capital cost of Rs.85 crore, the capacity of this plant can be further expanded to 80 MLD.

The work of laying the pipeline network from Bamroli to Pandesara is on the verge of completion. The processing unit would see the recycled water to flowing into the units by April-end.

At present, the Pandesara textile processing units are using around 60 MLD of potable water drawn from Tapi river on a daily basis. This year, the processing units consumed water worth Rs. 52 crore breaking all the past records of the last one-and-a-half-decade.

According to South Gujarat Textile Processors Association (SGTPA), the processing units paid Rs 23 per kilolitre to the civic body for the supply of water drawn from Tapi river. Of the 60 MLD water supplied, around 52 MLD water is used for production of unfinished fabrics, the rest is used for drinking purpose.

The processing units by making use of recycled water will no longer require potable water from the river which will help save natural water resource is a great extent.