Author Info | - Soli J Arceivala pioneered the business of environmental consultancy in India in 1961, long before any legislation for pollution control existed. He founded the first consultancy company in India, called AIC, specializing in water and environmental engineering work. In 1993, the Company became AIC Watson, then Montgomery Watson and presently, MWH, with Prof Arceivala as Chairman and then Chairman Emeritus until 2001 when he retired. He holds a degree from Harvard University, USA, and is a member of several professional bodies. Professor Arceivala was the R Adviser for Environmental Health with the UN / WHO R Office for Europe, and was later the Chief for WHO South East Asia Region, covering 11 countries. Before joining WHO, he was the Director of the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), Nagpur, Government of India, and before that Vice-Principal, VJTI, Mumbai. He is involved in teaching, research and consultancy work. He pioneered water conservation and reuse in various Indian industries in the mid-sixties and several plants for reuse of water have been built in India and the Middle East based on his designs. In recent years, he has worked on developing reuse of water for augmenting water resources for community uses and exploring low-carbon technologies for waste treatment. Professor Arceivala is the author of seven books on environmental engineering, three published by McGraw Hill, of which one has been translated into Turkish and Iranian languages. His other books have been published by the Indian Water Works Association, the Indian Environmental Association and Marcel Dekker, New York. Every year, for 20 years, he has been invited to give lectures at IHE, Delft, Holland, on wastewater treatment. In 1993-1994, Prof Arceivala was the President of the Indian Water Works Association and in 1996 he was the President of the Indian Environmental Association. In 1998, he became the fi rst Indian to be awarded "Distinguished Membership" of the American Society of Civil Engineers, (ASCE), USA, in honour of his lifetime work in India and overseas. Several Indian organizations have also honoured him with awards. Dr. Shyam R. Asolekar is a Professor at the Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He also served as the Head of the Department during May 2006 and June 2009. Dr Asolekar holds two degrees in chemical engineering: an undergraduate degree from Mumbai University's UICT (1980) and a master's degree from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (1985). Subsequently, he went to the U.S. to obtain his M.S. and Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from Syracuse University (1987) and University of Iowa (1991), respectively. After pursuing his postdoctoral studies at the Harvard University in Boston he returned to India in January 1993 to teach at the IIT Bombay. Dr Asolekar has been a member of the "Dahanu Taluka Environmental Protection Authority" (since 1997) as well as the "Expert Committee on Conversion of Municipal Solid Wastes to Energy" (since July 2005), both constituted by the Honorable Supreme Court of India. Recently, the Honorable Planning Commission of India has recruited him in the "Steering Committee on Environment, Forests & Wildlife" for the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-2017). He was in the "Working Group on Rivers, Lakes and Aquifers" for the 11th Five Year Plan as well as the core group for mid-term assessment of plan-period 2007-2012. Recently, Dr Asolekar has been appointed as a core-team member for a project envisaged and conducted by the consortium of seven IITs entrusted with the responsibility of preparing Ganga River Basin Environment Management Plan (GRB-EMP) by the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), GOI, New Delhi. The Govt of Maharashtra had appointed Prof Asolekar from 2007-2010 as an expert member in the "expert committee" entrusted with recommending clearance for the High-rise Buildings after investigating environmental suitability of the tower projects having more than 20 floors or taller than 70 meter of height. Earlier, under the Chairmanship of Dr Madhav Chitale, the Govt of Maharashtra had appointed Dr Asolekar in the "Fact-finding Committee" to probe the causes of the collapse of civic infrastructure in the aftermath of the deluge in Mumbai between July 26 and 29, 2005. Recently, Dr Asolekar has been inducted by the MoEF into the technical expert panel responsible for developing and implementing strategies for management of toxic and hazardous waste dump sites in India. His areas of research and industrial advice have been Treatment, Recycle and Reuse of Industrial and Municipal Wastewaters, Rejuvenation of Lakes, Rivers, and Polluted Coasts, Development of Technologies for Sustainable Futures, Environmental Policy, Preventive Environmental Management, Eco-industrial Networking, Global Environmental Issues, Treatment of Hazardous, Biomedical, and Solid Wastes, and Application of Remotely Sensed Data for Monitoring of Environmental Systems.
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