Tata Steel's utility services subsidiary Jusco has earned the attention of Vatican City for its innovative efforts in city water management and conservation.

The Pontifical Academy of Science, a wing of the Roman Catholic Church in Vatican City selected Jusco managing director Ashish Mathur as a panellist during its two-day long seminar 'The human right to water: an interdisciplinary focus and contributions on the central role of public policies in water and sanitation management' that began on Thursday.

As the head of a company that supplies 190 million-litres of water a day with nearly 60,000 connections and maintains a huge network of water mains (640km), sewer lines (475km) and drains (900km) in a city where people can drink water directly from the tap, Mathur spoke on governability and innovation in the public management of water and sanitation in Vatican City.

The only other Indian invited to the prestigious seminar is Rajasthan-based Rajendra Singh, popularly known as waterman of India. Singh, who chairs Tarun Bharat Sangh, an ecological organisation that won the Stockholm Water Prize 2015, will speak on the 'role of education and science in preserving the right to water'.

The seminar topic 'human right to water' has been selected for the first time in the seminar after Pope Francis in October 2016 said at St Peter's Square that access to food and water was a basic human right and appealed to believers and people everywhere to take personal responsibility for the needs of their neighbours.

"The workshop aims to create an interdisciplinary space for debate, thoughtful analysis and proposals in order to achieve public policies in water and sanitation management that guarantees efficient contribution of science, culture, politics and technological advancements to the human right to water. The Pope will deliver a discourse at the end of the two-day meet," Ashish Mathur told The Telegraph over phone from Vatican City on Wednesday.

In his 15-minute presentation, Mathur highlighted freshwater scarcity. About 450 million people in 31 countries face serious shortage of water and about 2.8 billion people in 48 countries including India are expected to face water shortage by 2025.

He said water harvesting and conservation were the solutions to the problem. "Reduce consumption, reuse to maximum possible level, recycle every drop and recharge the rest. Even a smallest drip in our house can waste as much as 75 litres a day," he said.

Innovative ways of smart water management in the city for over 100 years were also given.

Water supplied by Jusco undergoes testing through an NABL-accredited lab, the first of its kind by any private utility operator in India, from its SCADA(supervisory control and data acquisition - a category of software application program for process control). SCADA and GIS system for real-time data analysis and corrective measures with 100 per cent compliance to water quality norms are a given.

Almost 100 per cent of the sewage water is treated and reused in the city through a series of packaged sewage treatment plants and rain and surface water harvesting system and recharge pits.