India, July 2 -- India's water and wastewater treatment market, valued at $13.1 billion in 2023, is projected to reach $23.85 billion by 2033. This number mirrors India's accelerating urbanisation, climate fragility, and industrial thirst. In 2020, urban centres generated over 72.4 billion litres per day (BLD) of sewage; yet, the installed treatment capacity stood at just 31.84 BLD. The deficit of over 40 BLD represents a staggering gap in basic infrastructure. Progress here is unbalanced: Maharashtra treated over 8 BLD in end-2023, while Bihar treated under 0.4 BLD, despite comparable population pressures. A country that aims to supply piped drinking water to every rural household continues to lose billions of litres of water daily because of inadequate treatment and reuse mechanisms. Can a water-secure India ever emerge if it continues to ignore wastewater? India's industrial sector is a major player in this landscape. The industrial wastewater treatment sub-market was worth $1.44 billion in 2023 and is set to touch $2.4 billion by 2033. Sewage treatment, meanwhile, remains the second-largest segment, growing from $5.01 billion in 2023 to a projected $9.08 billion by 2033. Water treatment, including desalination and recycling plants, dominates, climbing from $6.65 billion to $12.37 billion in the same period. This layered growth hints at the simultaneous pressures of urban expansion, rising demand for potable water, and tighter environmental mandates. However, these numbers obscure a deeper structural issue - policy fragmentation. Despite the consolidation of water-related departments into the Jal Shakti ministry in 2019, overlapping jurisdictions, state-level inertia, and a lack of techno-commercial capacity often derail projects mid-stream. India's wastewater sector is undergoing a significant technological pivot. Traditional chemical treatment is steadily giving way to more sustainable, membrane-based approaches like reverse osmosis (RO), sequencing batch reactors (SBR), and membrane bioreactors (MBR). The market for these advanced technologies is buoyed by rising industrial compliance costs and water reuse mandates. However, with MBR systems being very expensive, the barriers to entry remain steep - particularly for small municipalities and low-income states. Public-private partnerships (PPPs) offer a partial solution, but uptake has been uneven. Tamil Nadu and Gujarat are leading examples, boasting some of the largest municipal and industrial desalination projects in Asia. But here's the catch - decentralised systems that serve peri-urban clusters, villages, and small towns are virtually absent in policy frameworks. Real-time water quality monitoring, process automation, and AI-enabled compliance tools are still limited to large city projects or high-end industrial clusters. India's budgetary allocations for water and sanitation are substantial but not transformative. In 2023, only 67% of Amrut 2.0 funds were utilised, and over Rs.6,000 crore of Jal Jeevan Mission grants remained unspent. Moreover, capital allocation is skewed towards urban megaprojects, while smaller cities - where over 60% of untreated wastewater originates - are left behind. Private investment faces its own hurdles. A 2023 industry survey revealed that 53% of wastewater firms cite high operating costs and lack of guaranteed returns on investment for not bidding on tenders. If the wastewater sector is to meet its $23.8 billion potential by 2033, India will need innovative financing mechanisms, including green bonds, water credits, and blended finance models. India's wastewater success is often measured by construction of sewage treatment plants (STPs) - by programmes such as Amrut 2.0 and Namami Gange - rather than performance. In 2023, as per the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), 40% of STPs failed to meet national discharge standards. Mandating zero liquid discharge (ZLD) for polluting sectors is a step in the right direction. But enforcement remains patchy. Only 13% of textile units in Punjab and Haryana were ZLD compliant as of mid-2023, despite repeated notices. Moreover, state-level implementation varies wildly. While Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Tamil Nadu have crossed 75% of their planned STP capacity, states such as Jharkhand and Tripura remain under 15%. The "3R" mantra - reduce, reuse, recycle - is slowly entering industrial and municipal thinking. Yet nationally, less than 20% of treated wastewater is reused. The rest is discharged back into the environment. Circular thinking also opens the door to energy recovery, nutrient extraction, and sludge-to-brick conversion. In Pune, for instance, biogas from sewage sludge powers local buses. But such projects are outliers, not norms. India's policy focus must shift from wastewater disposal to resource recovery. The challenge is immense - but so is the promise. The drain, it turns out, may be the most powerful pipeline to India's sustainable future....