Six Waste, Used-Water Tech Projects to Be Deployed Across Municipal Systems
The Tamil Nadu–Circular Innovation, Resource & Climate Leadership Ecosystem (TN-CIRCLE), introduced at an Urban Solutions Lab at the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras Research Park (IIT-MRP) aims to demonstrate how tested urban solutions can be integrated into the day-to-day operations of urban local bodies
CHENNAI: Six waste and used-water technology ventures will be supported to move from pilot projects to actual deployment within municipal systems across Tamil Nadu under a new 18-month programme launched by the University of Toronto India Foundation (UTIF) and Villgro Innovations Foundation.
The Tamil Nadu–Circular Innovation, Resource & Climate Leadership Ecosystem (TN-CIRCLE), introduced at an Urban Solutions Lab at the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras Research Park (IIT-MRP) aims to demonstrate how tested urban solutions can be integrated into the day-to-day operations of urban local bodies.
The programme has set indicative targets of reducing, recycling or repurposing 1,000 metric tonnes of waste, saving, treating or reusing 15 million litres of water and reaching more than one lakh people.
The initiative will initially focus on Chennai and Tiruchy, with the possibility of expanding to other urban centres in the State.
The programme comes at a time when startups and technology companies are developing solutions for waste management, wastewater treatment and water conservation. Many of them are also struggling to move beyond pilots and secure sustained adoption by municipal bodies.
TN-CIRCLE will attempt to address this gap by beginning with the requirements of urban local bodies rather than simply identifying technologies and looking for places to deploy them.
The programme partners will first work with municipal bodies to identify specific operational problems and requirements. Ventures will then be assessed against those needs, followed by technical evaluation, due diligence, matching with municipal hosts and on-ground deployment. The deployments will subsequently be monitored and the lessons documented to identify what enables or prevents wider adoption.
The focus areas include wastewater treatment and reuse, municipal solid-waste recovery, technology-enabled waste planning and collection, reduction of water losses, and restoration of urban waterbodies and stormwater systems.
Gauravi Lobo, Director, UTIF, said the key challenge was not merely developing companies or technologies but ensuring that there was a municipal buyer and budget for solutions after a pilot. “Building companies is the easier half of this problem. The harder half is making sure there is a buyer with a budget line at the end of the pilot,” she said, adding that the programme would make a long-term commitment to Chennai and Tiruchy.
The initiative also comes amid increasing pressure on urban water and waste-management systems. Growing cities are generating larger volumes of municipal waste while facing constraints on freshwater availability and the capacity of existing wastewater and resource-recovery systems.
The NITI Aayog’s 2026 report, Scenarios Towards Viksit Bharat and Net Zero – Sectoral Insights: Waste, has highlighted the need to strengthen wastewater treatment, reuse and resource recovery as India moves towards more circular waste-management systems. It has also pointed to the potential for treated wastewater to be reused in sectors such as agriculture, construction and horticulture. Against this backdrop, solutions that can reduce freshwater demand and recover resources from waste and wastewater are increasingly relevant to urban local bodies. Rini Dutta, chief growth officer, Villgro Innovations Foundation, said the difficult part for an innovation was often moving from a successful pilot to sustained adoption within municipal systems. Villgro, she said, works with urban local bodies to help promising solutions become technically validated, operationally ready and aligned with actual city requirements.
Under the partnership, UTIF will contribute to programme design, research, technical expertise, selection inputs, institutional relationships and knowledge exchange while Villgro will handle programme management and on-ground
coordination.
The partners will bring together municipal bodies, innovators, researchers, industry, investors and civil-society organisations to assess solutions against local operating conditions.
