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Our Bureau

Chennai, June 16 VA Tech Wabag, the international water management company, is setting up its first research programme in India jointly with Anna University.

Mr Rajiv Mittal, Managing Director, VA Tech Wabag, told Business Line that the facility would be the company’s first such initiative outside Europe.

The joint research programme with Anna University’s Centre for Environmental Studies will look at new technologies relating to water recycling, membrane processes — applied in desalination systems and water recycling processes — and reduction of sludge in wastewater recycling plants.

VA Tech Wabag would fund the programme and use its position as a market leader in water and waste water treatment systems to commercialise the technologies that Anna University’s experts develop at the research facility.

VA Tech Wabag is a Rs 1,250-crore multinational water management company with its global headquarters in Chennai. The company is present in more than 15 countries with its operations handled out of Chennai and Vienna.

For now, VA Tech’s spending on R&D is less than one per cent of its turnover but is targeting between 2 per cent and 3 per cent, Mr Mittal said. It has research programmes in Austria and Switzerland.

According to press release from the company, the agreement was signed on Wednesday marking the start of the Wabag-CES Research Collaboration Programme.

Wabag will also co-ordinate with leading European universities and R&D centres of Wabag Europe to provide expertise on special topics such as membrane technology and exchange of scientific and process engineering personnel.

Wabag has been cooperating with Zurich Water Supply and Vienna Main Sewage Treatment Plant, Austria, as well as with leading universities and research institutes to accomplish optimum results.

More Stories on : Research & Development | Education | Water | Tamil Nadu

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