Despite having a state of the art Sewerage Treatment Plant (STP) at Birsa Munda Airport in Ranchi, two lakh litters of water is being purchased by it the PHED in order to meet its requirement on daily basis. The STP constructed at the Airport for meeting the requirements of the hi-tech airport is yet to be commissioned for being functional.
“The process of commissioning the STP is on and we expect that it will start functioning very soon after the formalities are completed,” said Director of the airport Raju Raghvendra Kumar. Meanwhile, we are purchasing 2 lakh litres of water per day from the PHED which is used for all purposes,” he said.
According to the Airport staff, if the STP starts functioning, the daily requirement of the Airport for the purpose of maintenance and other day to day needs inside the airport could be easily met. “This is a total waste of drinking water which could easily be diverted to the common man of Ranchi undergoing water shortage,” he added.
Although some amount of water is also drawn from the bore-wells, it cannot meet the requirements of the airport as very less water could be fetched from it forcing the management to purchase water from the PHED department, he added.
“If the STP starts functioning, at least 50 percent of the requirement of maintenance of the airport could be met by the recycled water while the water purchased from the PHED may be used only for the purpose for drinking,” said the staff.
PHED officials however, said that the airport is also one of the bulk consumers along with several others in the city like Railways, MECON, CRPF and HEC camp. Railway is the largest consumer of water among all the bulk consumers.
Referring to the crisis of water in Ranchi, the PHED officials claim that water supplied to the 10.5-11.5 lakh people in the city is sufficient for their consumption but the problem is created due to flaw in the distribution network and unauthorised connections that too being sucked illegally through motors in the houses.
“The situation has been created due to the pilferage which is taking place in most of the places resulting into an effective supply of 50 per cent of water to the actual consumers,” said Executive Engineer in Hatia KK Verma.