Faridabad: STP projects held up due to funds shortage, payment issue

Tribune News Service

Bijendra Ahlawat

Faridabad, February 28

The upgrade of two main sewage treatment plants (STP) by the Municipal Corporation Faridabad (MCF), taken up a year ago, is lying suspended in the wake of fund crunch.

Work taken up on direction of NGT

• Located at Pratapgarh village and Mirjapur village, these STPs are proposed to have a total upgraded capacity of 180 MLD, said sources in the civic body
• The STPs were set to replace the earlier STPs, which had become defunct. The work was taken up on the direction of the NGT
• The work was taken up on the direction of the NGT. The disposal of civic waste, shortage of funds and held-up payments of the contractor had led to the halting of work for the past nearly two months

Located at Pratapgarh village and Mirjapur village, these STPs are proposed to have a total upgraded capacity of 180 MLD, said sources in the civic body.

The project, worth Rs 324 crore, started in early 2022. The project was expected to be completed by March, but the work has remained suspended for the past few months due to an issue of payment, said an official. He said the STPs were set to replace the earlier STPs, which had become defunct. The work was taken up on the direction of the NGT. The disposal of the civic waste, shortage of funds and held-up payments of the contractor had led to the halting of work for the past nearly two months, it is claimed. Another STP, having a capacity of 45 MLD, was being rebuilt by the FMDA (Faridabad Metropolitan Development Authority) at Bhadshahpur village.

As per the norms, the city needed an STP of 500 MLD capacity, but at present, only one STP of 45 MLD was functional. It was claimed that all untreated waste was dumped into drains, so more than 100 MLD of waste was generated by the local industrial units.

Unsafe disposal had been the prime cause of pollution of groundwater and the Yamuna in which the discharge was released, it is said.

Meanwhile, in a reply to an RTI query by Varun Sheokand, a resident, the MCF said though the work of the STP at Mirjapur village (100MLD) was nearing completion, the non-issuance of the NOC by the Forest Department of Uttar Pradesh for laying a five-km-long pipeline alongside the Agra canal between Kheri Pul and Mirjapur village, had led to the suspension of work. With Rs 85 crore already spent on it, the NOC was still awaited. A section of the land, where the pipeline is to be laid, belonged to UP.

Admitting payments issue, a senior official of the MCF said the upgradation of the STPs was expected to be over this year.

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