Officials of Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam and ‘Namami Gange’ project are working overtime to meet the deadline of November of this year to complete the work of Sewerage Treatment Plants (STPs) that will completely stop the flow of polluted water from the Varanasi drains into the holy Ganga. Officials said though the deadline to complete the work on the remaining STP is November, they expect it to be fully operational by May of this year as work is nearing completion. Nitin Gadkari, the Water Resources Minister is closely monitoring the progress and periodically reviews it.
“By July this year, the sewerage treatment capacity in Varanasi will exceed 400 million litres per day (MLD) and that will effectively control the flow of sewer water into the river completely” said Rajat Gupta, an engineer of UP Jal Nigam. “Assi Drain is the lone source left to be brought into the ambit of STPs. We have been able to control substantial flow of the contaminated sewerage water into the river but still it is flowing dirty water. Efforts are going on the war footing to compete it well before the deadline set by the Nodal Ministry”, Gupta added.
The upcoming Sewage treatment plant (STP) at Rammana, with capacity of 50 MLD, will treat the polluted water coming from Assi River, which is a major source of pollution in the Ganga. The current sewage generation in Varanasi is estimated at 300 MLD which is expected to increase to 400 MLD in the year 2035. At present, the three operational STPs in the city have 102 MLD treatment capacities. With the commissioning of three more STPs, the total sewage treatment capacity will go up to 412 MLD, adequate to meet the demand till 2035, said a senior official.
“Once this task is accomplished , it will mark a watershed moment in achieving the target of making the holy river clean by 2020 under the Namami Gange project launched by Narendra Modi Government”, said another official.
Residents of Varanasi are happy that ‘Maa Ganga’, their lifeline is getting the much needed infrastructural support by the Prime Minister to rid it of completely from pollution caused by unhindered flow of dirty water into it. “Sustained efforts are going on around Ganges and all ‘ghats’ have been cleaned. Ongoing projects, coupled with continuous work, have effectively controlled the inflow of soiled water and the river is much cleaner now.
“Ever since Ghats were spruced up, cleanliness drive was effectively implemented, the number of tourists including foreigners and people from other parts of country has gone up manifold.
Kishore, a boatman, whose family has been involved since ages, said, “Our daily earnings have gone fourfold with the new coming up of new infrastructures and river bank across Ghats getting a makeover. There was a time when tourists abhorred visiting Ghats as garbage and stench were unbearable. The situation has changed drastically now. “The filth around river bank was a big deterrent for foreigners in particular. Ghats are well maintained now and also, there has been a gradual rise in the tourist influx,” said Vinod Mallah, another boatman at Assi Ghats.
In order to maintain cleanliness around all the Varanasi Ghats, the Union Government has assigned the task to a private concessionaire for cleaning all the 84 Ghats in Varanasi for three years. Government is paying Rs 5 crore per year for the same and the Centre intends to spend another 13 crore for cleaning of 94 Ghats of Kanpur, Prayagraj, Bithoor and Mathura and Vrindavan that are situated on the banks of Ganges. Sewerage water has been flowing into the river from these four cities and needs to be controlled.
“Works on two projects (50 MLD in Varanasi and 82 MLD in Hardwar) are almost complete while other projects that are sanctioned include Naini, Jhansi, Phaphamau, Unnao, Shuklaganj, Mathura, Kanpur, Mirzapur, Gazipur and Farrukhabad in Uttar Pradesh; Digha, Kankarbagh and Bhagalpur in Bihar; Howrah, Bally and Tolly's Nalla (Kolkata), Kamarhati and Baranagar in West Bengal” said the official.
Conscious of the fact that crores of people flocking the Kumbh at Prayagraj, the Union Ministry of Ganga Rejuvenation under Nitin Gadkari has put additional impetus on cleaning activities at the ongoing Kumbh. The government has sanctioned projects for treatment of sewerage water coming from 53 drains in Prayagraj for six months in view of Kumbh. Further, Rs 113 crore was sanctioned for over 47,000 toilets at the Kumbh.
Three new STPs being commissioned at Naini, Jhansi and Phaphamau in Prayagraj would treat 72 MLD of sewer water before being discharged into the Ganga.
The Namami Gange project consists of 261 projects 194 of which deal with constructing STPs, rural sanitation and bioremediation largely spanning Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand, which are responsible for most of the pollution. Most of the 221 projects under the Namami Gange Mission worth Rs 25,563 crore are at advanced stages of completion.