Sewage treatment plants along Ganga tributaries

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 17

The Centre is set to take its Clean Ganga campaign to the next level by extending construction of sewage treatment plants (STPs) projects in townships located along the river’s tributaries in a phased manner.

This comes after its approvals for STPs in townships related to the river’s mainstream in the five basin states being completed. The basin states are: Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar and West-Bengal.

The STP projects are important component of the Clean Ganga Mission so as to stop effluents and other polluted discharges which get drained in huge quantities in the river unchecked. The idea is to treat them before they get drained into the river and its tributaries. Water Resources Secretary UP Singh said the exercise to clean Ganga can not fructify till its tributaries are also cleaned. The 2,500-km stretch of the Ganga has about 15 tributaries.

In the first phase, STPs would be set up in townships along banks of four tributaries: Kali, Ramganga, Gomati and Hindon.

Kali, which originates in Doon Valley is one the most polluted. It travels about 140 km through populated and industrial belt in Uttar Pradesh (Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut and Bagpat) before merging into the Hindon river.

It pollutes Hindon, which originates in Saharnapur district, from upper Shivalik in the lower Himalayan range.

The government is determined to make Ganga palpably clean by February 2019 — before run-up to the next General Election.

It has abandoned the October 2, 2018 deadline announced by preceding Water Resources Minister Uma Bharati for complete cleanliness of the river.

Sources said the deadline was set immediately after formation of the present government showing urgency on account of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attention to the project.