Author – Pooja Dhondhyal
Walk along the banks of the Yamuna in Delhi or the Cooum in Chennai. The state of India’s urban water bodies becomes evident that statistics often fail to capture. Decades of untreated sewage and industrial discharge have reduced several of Indian rivers to open drains. Meanwhile, groundwater tables in major cities are falling year after year, and per capita freshwater availability has declined sharply over the past two decades.
The uncomfortable truth is that India generates far more wastewater than it treats. Conventional infrastructure is unable to keep pace with the scale of urbanization and industrial growth. In this context, membrane wastewater treatment is no longer a niche subject for engineers. It is becoming central to how India will manage water in the decades ahead.
What exactly is membrane wastewater treatment?
At its simplest, membrane filtration works by pushing water through a semi-permeable barrier under pressure. Contaminants are rejected based on their physical size or chemical charge, while treated water passes through to the other side. It is similar to how a sieve works, but the precision goes far deeper than that. Some membranes operate at a molecular level, removing particles invisible to any conventional filter.
There are four types of membrane filtration in use today:
- Microfiltration filters out suspended solids and bacteria. It is typically the first stage in a multi-barrier treatment system or is used independently for relatively clean feed water.
- Ultrafiltration removes finer particles including viruses and colloidal matter. It is widely deployed in drinking water treatment and as a pre-treatment stage before reverse osmosis.
- Nanofiltration targets dissolved salts and specific organic compounds. It is used where partial softening or selective ion removal is needed without full desalination.
- Reverse Osmosis is the most rigorous of all the filtration types. It removes virtually all dissolved solids and is used wherever the highest purity output is required, from industrial process water to water recycling systems.
Why India Is Moving in This Direction
Industrial wastewater in sectors such as pharmaceuticals, textiles, chemicals, and food processing has grown far more complex than what conventional wastewater treatment was designed to handle. The Central Pollution Control Board has tightened wastewater discharge norms progressively and the cost of non-compliance has increased. Membrane systems have become the most reliable route to get consistent compliance in these sectors.
Water scarcity is the other urgent need. Cities like Bengaluru, Chennai, and Hyderabad are already sourcing water from increasingly distant reservoirs and facing acute seasonal stress. In this environment, treating wastewater to a quality suitable for reuse is not an idealistic goal. It is a practical necessity.
According to Vyansa Intelligence, India is undergoing a structural transition from conventional wastewater treatment systems toward high-efficiency membrane-based solutions, particularly among industrial sectors and municipal segments. This shift reflects both compliance pressure and a broader recognition that water reuse must become a standard practice.
How This Compares to Conventional Approaches
Traditional wastewater treatment in India has relied on sedimentation tanks, activated sludge processes, and sand filtration. These systems are well-established, and their capital costs have historically been lower. However, they produce inconsistent output quality, require large land areas, and often fall short of the standards required for safe water reuse.
Membrane wastewater treatment systems address each of these limitations directly. Output quality is consistent regardless of variation in the incoming feed. The physical footprint is smaller, which matters greatly in land-scarce urban environments. And the treated water quality is high enough to support genuine reuse rather than simple disposal.
Membrane Wastewater Treatment Systems in India
- Municipal sewage treatment is a major area of deployment for membrane wastewater treatment systems. Several Indian cities have upgraded their existing sewage treatment plants with membrane technology, enabling the treated output to be used for horticulture, industrial cooling, and groundwater recharge rather than being discharged into rivers.
- Mumbai has emerged as a pioneer in this transformation. The city’s membrane-based upgrades include India’s first greenfield sewage treatment plant at Worli with a capacity of 500 million liters per day (MLD), and a 360 MLD plant at Bandra, which ranks as the country’s second-largest sewage treatment plant. Rashtriya Chemicals & Fertilizers’ facility in Chembur, using a 22 MLD plant, has transformed water access for 30,000 families in the surrounding area, while also freeing up freshwater for domestic use. Beyond Mumbai, states such as Goa, Haryana, Maharashtra, West Bengal, and Uttarakhand have begun upgrades to their existing sewage treatment infrastructure. Municipalities in Vadodara, Indore, and Surat have issued green bonds with covenants mandating the reuse of treated effluents by 2028.
- Textile manufacturing clusters in Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra have adopted membrane-based Zero Liquid Discharge systems, which can recover nearly all water from industrial effluents and eliminate liquid discharge entirely. The results from these clusters demonstrate that membrane filtration systems can treat wastewater heavily contaminated with dye effluents and bring it to a reusable quality. Similarly, pharmaceuticals and chemicals rely on membrane systems both to produce high-purity process water and to treat complex effluents before discharge.
- Decentralized systems for residential complexes, educational institutions, and hospitals represent a growing category. These compact units treat wastewater at the point of generation, making treated water available for toilet flushing, gardening, or cooling, and reducing the volume entering municipal drainage systems.
Innovations Shaping the Field
Membrane Bioreactors combine biological treatment with membrane filtration in a single unit. They produce high-quality output in a compact footprint and are increasingly favoured for urban sewage treatment applications. Real-time monitoring and AI-assisted predictive maintenance are beginning to transform how membrane systems are operated. Sensors track pressure differentials and flow rates continuously, and algorithms flag the early signs of membrane fouling before performance degrades. This extends membrane life and reduces operational disruption.
Various Indian startups and established manufacturers are also entering the membrane wastewater treatment segment, by developing locally adapted solutions and reducing dependence on imported membranes.
- Memtrix Technologies among the first Indian companies to produce PVDF hollow fiber membranes domestically. Its membranes are deployed across textiles, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and food processing, and the company claims to deliver comparable performance on par with international brands at 40-50% lower costs.
- Earthy, another Indian startup, is developing biomimetic membranes using aquaporin proteins that occur naturally in living cells and are highly efficient at transporting water.
- Peore uses nanofiltration technology with an intelligent semi-permeable membrane for water purification.
- On the manufacturing and project execution front, SUSBIO has installed over 500 active sewage treatment plants across 24 Indian states since its founding in 2013.
- Ion Exchange India Ltd., a prominent domestic player, announced a collaboration with a foreign partner to develop innovative membrane filtration technologies.
- VA Tech Wabag, headquartered in Chennai, has built a substantial portfolio in membrane-based municipal and industrial water treatment both domestically and internationally. This domestic manufacturing base matters for long-term cost competitiveness and broader access to the technology.
Challenges in implementation
However, there are some barriers for wider adoption. Capital costs remain significantly higher than conventional wastewater treatment systems. A typical 1 MLD plant requires an investment of ₹1-1.5 crore, while a 50 MLD plant can range from ₹50 crore to ₹75 crore, with membrane-based systems costing the higher end of these ranges. This is a major obstacle for smaller municipalities or industries that operate on thin margins. Further, membrane wastewater treatment systems are technically demanding and the availability of trained personnel in smaller cities is limited. Membrane fouling requires disciplined maintenance protocols and periodic replacement. Energy consumption, particularly for reverse osmosis, is a cost and sustainability consideration that operators need to take care.
The broader picture
India’s membrane wastewater treatment market is valued at around $520 million in 2025, which is projected to reach $891.2 million by 2032, growing at a CAGR of around 8%. Vyansa Intelligence points to industrial compliance requirements, deepening water scarcity, and improving membrane efficiency as the primary growth drivers.
The direction of this transition is clear. Whether adoption happens quickly enough to meaningfully reduce the pressure on India’s water bodies will depend on investment, policy enforcement, and the willingness of industries and municipalities to move beyond minimum compliance toward genuine water stewardship.
This expert report is written by Pooja Dhondhyal – A research manager at Vyansa Intelligence with more than 8 years of experience in market research, industry analysis, and competitive intelligence.
