Market Intelligence | Water: Indian Cities Begin the Shift from Sludge Disposal to Resource Recovery

Featured in Bharatia | Water Intelligence — Issue 1, 02 September 2026

The transition from sludge disposal to resource recovery is no longer merely a future proposition for India. Several Indian cities are beginning to redesign how sludge is treated and what happens to the resources contained within it. Vadodara has already demonstrated an operating model at scale, while Mumbai is embedding advanced biosolids management into a major new generation of wastewater infrastructure. Other cities are now beginning to follow.

Together, these developments could mark the beginning of an important shift: sludge treatment becoming an integral part of wastewater infrastructure rather than an unresolved consequence of it.

Vadodara, Gujarat: An operating sludge-to-soil model at city scale

Vadodara provides one of India's most important existing examples of sludge resource recovery.

The city already has approximately 70,000 tonnes per annum of sludge-to-biosolids treatment capacity, which has been operating for several years.

Under a private-sector operating model, sludge generated by the city's wastewater treatment system is collected and processed rather than simply transported for disposal. The facility treats the material to produce a high-quality soil conditioner, creating a productive outlet for resources contained within municipal sludge.

Vadodara is particularly significant because it demonstrates that sludge-to-soil need not remain a pilot-scale proposition. A city can aggregate substantial quantities of sludge, establish dedicated processing capacity and operate a commercial arrangement around the resulting product.

The next challenge is to take lessons from such operating facilities and determine how the model can be standardised, financed and replicated across other Indian cities.

Mumbai, Maharashtra: Designing resource recovery into the next generation of STPs

Mumbai represents a different but potentially much larger step.

The city is developing seven major new sewage treatment plants, expected to come online progressively from late 2027. These facilities are planned to produce Class A biosolids, bringing sludge quality and its subsequent management directly into the design of the city's new wastewater infrastructure.

The transition is also beginning at existing infrastructure. Mumbai's 37 MLD Colaba STP is being developed to produce approximately 10 tonnes per day of soil-conditioner product from its sludge.

This is important because Mumbai is not treating sludge management as a separate downstream problem. The opportunity is to connect wastewater treatment, biosolids quality, processing and eventual productive use as parts of the same infrastructure value chain.

At the scale of Mumbai's wastewater system, establishing viable markets for the resulting biosolids will be as important as producing them.

The next wave is emerging: Vadodara and Mumbai are unlikely to remain isolated examples. Delhi and Pimpri-Chinchwad have already initiated procurement processes for sludge-treatment solutions, while other municipalities are at different stages of developing their own sludge-management plans.

The direction of travel is therefore becoming clearer. The next challenge is to ensure that cities do not simply procure individual technologies, but develop complete sludge-management systems encompassing characterisation, treatment, resource recovery, markets, offtake and finance.

India has spent decades expanding its capacity to treat wastewater. The emerging opportunity is to complete the job:

Treat the water. Treat the sludge. Recover the resources. Create the market.

This article appears in Bharatia | Water Intelligence — Issue 1

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