In a key meeting with its department officials on Wednesday, Delhi Jal Board (DJB) chairman Satyendar Jain instructed to upgrade all STPs within a span of 12-15 months using state-of-the-art technology and to introduce a new tariff to supply treated water from STP aiming to use less groundwater.
“In the new method of upgradation, existing plants will be revived according to the latest standards without additional civil work, without tree cutting and with minimal effect to the neighbourhood,” he said.
He added, `5,000 per acre per month would be charged from the beneficiaries apart from one-time fixed cost of `10,000 per acre that will be paid as an infrastructure charge.
According to the Jal Board, biogas plants, which treat sludge and produce biogas, will also be upgraded to handle all multiple types of solid waste such as sludge from STP, septage from septic tank, cow dung from dairies and Municipal Solid Waste especially from mandis and nearby societies/colonies.
At present, these STPs only treat sludge coming from sewage.
Jain in the meeting said, “It is the responsibility of the MCD to handle these waste types but the DJB will lead this initiative to clean waste in order to reduce the burden on existing landfill sites and which in turn is a very important step to clean Delhi.”
The DJB currently has biogas plants capacity to handle around 400 tonnes per day capacity, out of which 240 MGD is functional.
The AAP Minister directed officials to make the complete capacity functional within one year.
Jain instructed the officials to upgrade its 20 biogas plants also.
In the meeting, it was decided that the DJB will supply treated STP water to farmhouses and institutions in areas like Satbari, Sultanpur and Jaunpur, etc which are currently extracting groundwater for horticultural needs. It is expected that more than 15 million gallons per day of water would be supplied to farmhouses so that tubewells could be closed and precious groundwater will be saved.