National workshop on drinking water quality surveillance advanced technology in water and waste water management and public- private partnership initiatives ,(6 to 9 Nov, 2001)

The urban share of population is expected to grow from 28% to 41% over the period 2001-2011. The urban population as per 2001 census is 285 million. With the rapid growth of population in urban areas, it has become a challenge before the planners, policy makers and engineers to provide the entire population living in urban areas with safe and adequate quantity and quality of drinking water, hygienic sewerage & drainage facilities and public cleansing services. To operate and maintain the existing water supply and sanitation systems as well as to take up new water supply and sanitation projects, to meet the ever increasing demand of the urban community, the requirement of funds is so huge that the central and state Government initiatives/ investments alone may not be able to meet such a demand. As such, the public-private partnership (PPP) is a felt need of the hour which has already been attempted in some developing countries.

To meet the said challenges, it has also become necessary to go-in for regular drinking water quality surveillance, adoption of advanced/appropriate tech nologies in water & waste management and PPP initiatives.

In India, some water supply and sanitation utilities have taken certain initiatives to adopt advanced and cost effective technologies in water and waste management. As such, there is a need to propagate such success stories so as to enable other water supply and sanitation agencies to attempt the same. Keeping, this broad objective in view, the M/o Urban Development & Poverty Alleviation organised a National Workshop entitled "Drinking Water Quality Surveillance, Advanced Technologies in Water and Waste Management and Public Private Partnership" at Bangalore during 6-9 November, 2001 in collaboration with World Health Organisation (WHO); the Government of Karnataka, Bangalore Water Supply & Sewerage Board & Karnataka Urban Water Supply & Sewerage Board.