An Exclusive Interview with Amit Badlani, Managing Director at Vihaan Clean & Green Tech Pvt. Ltd. (VCGTPL), and Go Green Mechanisms Pvt. Ltd
Meet Amit Badlani, Managing Director of Vihaan Clean & Green Tech Pvt. Ltd. (VCGTPL), and Go Green Mechanisms Pvt. Ltd India’s trailblazing environmental infrastructure firm. In this candid interview, he unveils the strategies driving sustainable innovation, from waste management to green tech, shaping a cleaner future for the nation.
What does shared environmental infrastructure mean, and why is it more effective for Indian industries than individual setups?
Amit Badlani: Shared environmental infrastructure is where multiple industries in the same cluster share centralised facilities to use rather than each industry individually setting up their own treatment systems.
Examples of shared environmental infrastructure include Common Effluent Treatment Plants (CETPs), Common Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) systems, and centralised utilities such as Reverse Osmosis (RO), Multi Effect Evaporator (MEE), Agitated Thin Film Dryer (ATFD), sludge handling, and centralised boiler plants.
In India, due to the dominance of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in industrial clusters, this model is much more effective and practical.
By enabling the sharing of expensive capital equipment, the use of shared environmental infrastructure generally saves 30-50% off the capital cost of a stand-alone environmental facility.
Centralised environmental facilities also result in professional operations and maintenance, continuous monitoring, and consistent compliance with regulations for all members of the cluster.
This reduces the risk of shutdowns caused by non-compliant individual industries. In water-stressed regions such as Mehsana, cluster-level ZLD systems enable large-scale water recycling, strengthening long-term water security for industries.
How does Vihaan Clean & Green Tech’s work with common boilers and biogas plants demonstrate future-proofing against water scarcity and rising energy costs?
Amit Badlani: An Integrated Cluster Level Approach has been adopted by Vihaan Clean & Green Technologies Pvt. Ltd, to integrate Common Effluent Treatment Plants (CETPs) with Centralized Boiler Systems and Biogas/Biomass Plants.
This eliminates individual boiler management and fuel price volatility, as common boilers will supply consistent steam to each connected unit of operation resulting in greater efficiency from all jetting off.
By integrating biogas and biomass systems together to convert agricultural waste, food, sludge and organic materials into usable clean energy, this reduces dependence on fossil fuels for operation, while also minimizing exposure to the volatility in fuel pricing and supporting compliance with increasingly stringent emissions standards in Gujarat.
This reduces the carbon footprint of the industrial cluster as well. Additionally, with the integrating water recycling and renewable energy systems at scale, Vihaan’s model strengthens both water resilience and long-term energy security for MSMEs.
What are the biggest regulatory and operational hurdles in adopting shared effluent treatment, and how has Vihaan addressed them?
Amit Badlani: There are numerous challenges that exist associated with the adoption of shared effluent infrastructure in India, including the need for multiple regulatory bodies to approve projects, land aggregation for Centralized Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP) and Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) facilities, common conveyance pipelines across various industries with inconsistent effluent discharge characteristics, and financing cluster-wide infrastructure as well as assuring long-term professional operation and maintenance.
Many CETPs underperform due to inadequate long-term management. Vihaan overcomes these challenges by serving as a single point integrator: managing design, regulatory coordination, funding models, project execution, and long-term operation & maintenance.
Vihaan strives to eliminate variances in influent quality by instituting uniform pretreatment criteria for member industries; it deploys digitized monitoring systems (e.g., SCADA) and automated sampling devices to facilitate real-time tracking of compliance; and it maintains close working relationships with regulators early in the development process to minimize potential delays and objections.
Can you share an example where shared infrastructure enabled water reuse or improved compliance outcomes?
Amit Badlani: An excellent illustration of the advantages of a shared environmental infrastructure system is Vihaan’s CETP + ZLD. Through these integrated systems, an estimated 70-90% of treated wastewater is returned to the participating industrial enterprises.
This means there will be less demand for freshwater by these industries. In addition to being significant recovery, it increases overall water security while reducing the environmental impact of industrial operations.
The ability to adhere to regulatory environmental standards is not only available to larger companies, but the shared approach to treatment, monitoring, and compliance enables MSMEs to function effectively without facing potential shutdowns and regulatory interference.
A professionally managed plant will effectively streamline the processes of inspection, monitoring, and receiving compliance approvals from regulatory agencies. This means there will be less risk of penalties and interruptions to their operations.
Smaller enterprises that do not have capital or sufficient capacity to support their own treatment systems will benefit by having continued production and regulatory stability. Therefore, they will achieve long-term operational resilience.
How does the World Environment Day tree plantation initiative connect to long-term industrial resilience?
Amit Badlani: Vihaan’s plantation of 400 trees in partnership with the Gujarat Pollution Control Board is a demonstration of its efforts to integrate engineered infrastructure with nature-based solutions.
Although symbolic, such efforts help to recharge groundwater, lower ambient dust and heat stress in industrial areas, and generally improve the environment surrounding industrial clusters.
Such efforts also help to improve the alignment of industry and government, reinforcing the idea that sustainability is ingrained in both infrastructure development and natural resource management.
What policy changes would accelerate adoption of shared systems across sectors like textiles or chemicals?
Amit Badlani: The government should support adoption by providing policy assistance that enables quicker single-window processing of three specific items which include CETPs and ZLD clusters and common boilers.
The government should provide capital subsidies and viability gap funding to support shared utilities while offering concessional green finance to MSMEs that join cluster-based infrastructure projects.
New industrial estates should implement shared environmental systems while carbon credit systems should support biomass and biogas-based energy systems and standardized pre-treatment guidelines should help reduce CETP failures.
Shared environmental infrastructure would develop into a key element for sustainable industrial development according to new measures.
Amit Badlani’s leadership at VCGTPL exemplifies how vision meets action in environmental stewardship. As challenges loom, his optimism for scalable green solutions inspires hope. India’s eco-revolution thrives through pioneers like him—proving sustainability is not just possible, but profitable and essential.
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