National Environmental Engineering Research Institute

Anusandhan Bhawan, 2 Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Marg,
New Delhi – 110001

Role in the project

CSIR will coordinate the PANIWATER project in India. CSIR will also coordinate the work package on Recycle of Sewage for agriculture direct reuse. This will include coordinating and managing governance structures & reporting requirements associated with the project. WP2: Coordinator. Monitoring of STPs; Adsorbent materials and design of adsorption unit Identification of Demo sites;
Design construction of Pilot plants; Optimization of Operation of Indian Pilot plants. WP3: Design of Prototypes for Drinking water

Team

Dr.Rita S Dhodapkar, PhD.

Project Coordinator India

Rita S Dhodapkar is a Senior Technical Officer and Technical Manager of the NABL related activities of CSIR. She has nearly 30 years’ experience and her areas of research interests are Water and Wastewater Management, application of advanced treatment technologies i.e., membrane processes, solar and UV photocatalysis, adsorption processes for water and wastewater treatment, environmental monitoring and remediation of chemicals of emerging concern e.g. PPCPs and pseudo-persistant pollutants, Super absorbent polymers for environmental remediation. She has worked in Industry sponsored research and consultancy projects for wastewater management related problems in Sewage treatment plants, refineries, paper industry, metal and minerals, coke oven and steel, distilleries, textile,
tanneries etc. for the past 20 years. She is a recipient of a number of national and international collaborative projects (Royal Society, UK, Global Challenges Research Fund-Research Council UK, CEMI, PTB, Germany etc.), and was awarded the Commonwealth Science Council training fellowship, Honorary Diploma-Seche Environment Award for excellence in Research in Wastes Valorization, at the 2nd International Conference on Engineering for Waste Valorization which was held at Patras, Greece. She serves as an external advisory board member to EU Horizon 2020 project on “WATERSPOUTT”. She has more than forty original research publications in high impact journals of national and international repute and has also authored two Indian patent applications and three design registration applications.

Dr.Sukdeb Pal, PhD

Sukdeb is a Scientist and Technical Manager of the NABL related activities of Wastewater Laboratory in the Wastewater Technology Division, CSIR. He is also an Assistant Professor of Physical Sciences in Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research (AcSIR). He holds a master degree in Chemistry and graduated with a doctorate in Pharmacy. He has worked in quite a few industrial and academic research institutes both in India and abroad including
Electrosteel Castings Limited, Bioinorganic Laboratory at Department of Chemistry, University of Kalyani, Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) R&D Centre, Nanobiosensor Laboratory at Department of Chemistry, Chungnam National University, Biochip and Bioimaging Laboratory at Seoul National University, Nanomedicinal Lab at the Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Seoul National University. Before joining CSIR in 2011, he was associated with Inspectorate (a Bureau Veritas group of companies) as the Technical Advisor of its laboratories across India. He is the recipient of an Excellent Performance Award (in Research) by HUL, Brain Korea 21 (BK21) Scholarships for Graduate Students, Excellent Research Award by BK21, BK21 Postdoctoral Fellowship, Early Career Fellowship from Welcome Trust-DBT. Initially he worked on synthesis of antidiabetic mixed-ligand vanadium complexes, synthesis of new mixed-metal coagulant and surface modification of adsorbent materials and various other aspects of material chemistry for water purification. Later his research interest was focused on development of new generation of biosensors using DNA and protein probes, laser-induced fluorescence spectroscopy and bioimaging. He was also involved in synthesis of metal and higher valent metal complex nanoparticles, and investigations of their physicochemical and biochemical properties. He has more than twenty original research publications in high impact journals of international repute. Sukdeb has also authored a few Indian and International patent applications. He has in his credit granted patents from European Patent (one), US Patent (one) and Korean Patent (one) Offices. His present research interests are focused on river and lake restoration work, water/ wastewater treatment technologies and reject management including fundamental and applied aspects of synthesis, characterization, and structure-property correlation of multifunctional (nano)materials with projected environmental applications. He has been associated with national and international projects as PI or Co-PI.

Dr.Nishant A. Dafale, M.Sc. &Ph.D Microbiology

Nishant is currently working as a Scientist in the Environmental Biotechnology & Genomic Division at CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (CSIR), Nagpur. He has more than 15 years of experience in the area of Biotechnology and Microbiology. His current interest areas of research are Microbial Genomics and Metagenomics with respect to Environment and Health issues. Currently, he is working on four major projects with respect to microbial dynamics in different environmental niches and their application for valuable
products. The activity-specific microbial consortia have also been designed for different applications. Several published papers give the idea of his experience on tracking of MDR bugs and genes in different environmental niches. He has also worked on several aspects of bacteriophage including concentration, recovery to the metagenomics and mining of phage genes in different water sources. Nishant was awarded with CSIR-Senior Research Fellow (SRF) by Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), New Delhi while doing his Ph.D. He has published more than 20 papers in SCI journals and significantly contributed in 5 books. Also, he has published several research papers in National and International conferences. He is recognized Ph.D. supervisor for Microbiology and Biotechnology in RTM Nagpur University, Nagpur and NMU, Jalgaon, MS (India). He is supervisor for two Ph.D students and 10 M.Sc projects have been completed under his guidance.