GMDA issues notices to 366 housing societies

Our Correspondent

Gurugram, August 7

The Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) has issued notices to 366 residential societies in the city to install sewage treatment plants (STPs) immediately lest they will lose sewerage connections. The move comes in the wake of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) criticism of the city for polluting the Yamuna.

The notices, according to a senior GMDA official, have been served on private developers who had given an undertaking to install sewage treatment plants while seeking a construction licence from the Town and Country Planning Department. Most of them did not honour their undertakings even a decade after completing construction works.

Given the cost of setting up and maintaining STPs, most of the housing societies have chosen to directly discharge sewage into drains, including the Najafgarh nullah, eventually polluting the Yamuna. Ironically, no action was initiated against the offenders for years. However, the GMDA carried our random checks and identified 366 housing societies as the culprits. It was in April this year that an NGT-appointed principal monitoring committee reviewed the GMDA’s performance and expressed concern over the agency’s failure to check sewage discharge into the Yamuna through the Najafgarh drain.

The GMDA has provided an option to all builders to either get their own STPs built or take proper sewerage connections from it and pay charges. The city has three main STPs at Dhanwapur to treat 300 million gallons of dirty water every day.

“It is shocking that while they had given an undertaking to build STPs and even charged house owners for it, they have been discarding sewage into drains. Pollution cannot be tolerated at any level and defiance shall invite legal action” said a senior GMDA official.