NYSE-Listed Xylem Inc Makes India Global R&D, Sourcing Hub

India is fast emerging as the global R&D and sourcing hub for the New York Stock Exchange-listed, $5 billion company, Xylem Inc, a global leader in developing innovative water solutions through smart technology. The company also sees India as a strategic market and has been investing in it for the last 5 years. It is in talks with a number of civic bodies in different cities across the country and is already collaborating with Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) to provide 2,75,000 smart water meters in the first phase over a period of 3 years. The overall water solutions market in India is estimated to be $1.5 billion- $2 billion and has been witnessing a double-digit growth in the past couple of years. Xylem India is keen on tapping this large market, said Nitin Bhate, senior director, marketing, Xylem Water Solutions India Pvt Ltd.

The company, which at present, has a manufacturing facility at Vadodara, Gujarat and IT-based R&D facility in Bangalore, is already scouting for the most suitable location for a second plant and is also expanding its R&D facility, he said.

Significantly, a recent NITI Aayog report, that drew data from 24 of the 29 states in India, has predicted that India’s water crisis is only going to get worse. As many as 600 million Indians face high to extreme water stress and nearly 2 lakh people die every year thanks to inadequate access to safe water. Besides, 21 cities in India are likely to run out of groundwater by 2020. The situation is indeed alarming and it is high time governments and utilities look at solutions that help in not just addressing the crisis but turning it around, the report says.

Water loss in India, at present, is estimated to be 40-50 percent and Sensus, the brand from the Xylem stable, is working towards bringing this down to 15 percent over the next couple of years, said Vaidya, adding that the company is committed to ‘solving water’ by creating innovative and smart technology solutions to meet the world's water, wastewater and energy needs.

Besides pumps, the company is into several areas touching water, such as building water tower tanks, water treatment, de-clogging water pipelines and testing and metering water, pipeline condition assessment, leak detection and sewage treatment, which are other growing areas in India, said Kapil Jain, director, sales (transport), Xylem Water Solutions India Pvt Ltd.

The company sees schemes like AMRUT and smart city initiatives, as a likely game changers as the former encourages municipal bodies across India to invest in smart distribution networks with the aim of delivering 24X7 clean water to people. Municipal bodies/water utilities in India are increasingly seeing the larger positive picture of how with the use of smart water meters and cutting edge technology solutions, they would be able to significantly cut down on non-revenue water, he said.

A background note provided by the company says that over 90 per cent of the waste water is discharged into rivers, lakes and ponds untreated, which leads to contamination of water sources. As a result, India uses about 250 cubic km of groundwater each year, which is about a quarter of the global groundwater use. If this situation continues, the country will face severe water scarcity by 2050.