NGT seeks report on 6 sewage plants in Rewari

Rewari, August 24

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has directed the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to submit a report within one month about the current status of the functioning of six sewage treatment plants (STPs) being operated by the government department in the district.

The move aims at ascertaining whether these were maintaining the prescribed standards.

Sources claimed that fresh samples from outlets of these STPs would be taken by the CPCB to ascertain the current range of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), suspended solids (SS), faecal coliform (FC) and chemical oxygen demand (COD). Limits of all these parameters have been fixed to check pollution.

Five of the STPs are being operated by the Public Health and Engineering Department (PHED) at Nasiaji Road, Kharkara and Kaluwas villages and Bawal town here while the sixth one is being maintained by the Haryana Shahari Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP) in the Dharuhera industrial town here.

The NGT recently issued the directives while hearing a complaint filed by Prakash Yadav of Kharkara village in 2022. In the complaint, he alleged that the STPs were releasing sewage on to hundreds of acres of vacant land of dried-up Sahabi River near Kharkhara and Khaliawas villages on the Delhi-Jaipur National Highway.

Yadav further stated that the sewage not only led to contamination of groundwater but also damaged the trees and other vegetation. Foul smell was still emanating from dirty water accumulated in the area of the dried-up Sahabi river, which was a clear indication that the water was untreated, he added.

“I have demanded that the authorities should stop the discharge of untreated water from the STPs into the Sahabi river area and ensure proper treatment of waste water before releasing it besides conducting regular monitoring,” he added.

Sources said the Haryana State Pollution Control Board (HSPCB) authorities had already imposed a total of over Rs 3 crore environmental compensation on five of the six STPs after their samples were found exceeding the permissible limit of various environment parameters. The samples were taken following the directives of the NGT into the case.

Interestingly, none of the STPs has so far deposited the compensation forcing the HSPCB to urge the Deputy Commissioner of Rewari to recover the environmental compensation from them in accordance with the law of the Haryana Land Revenue Act.

In its recent orders issued on August 14, the NGT stated that “From the record, we do not find any current status of functioning of the STPs whether they maintain the prescribed standards or not. Let testing be done by the CPCB and it shall submit a compliance report within one month.”

Harish Sharma, Regional Officer, HSPCB, Dharuhera, said, “We do regular monitoring of all STPs in the district and also take samples from there quarterly. Since the NGT has issued the direction to the CPCB hence a report of the current status of functioning of the STPs will be submitted by the CPCB.”