Save Sabarmati: A Desperate Cry

The Raysan-Vautha stretch of the river recorded an alarming BOD of 292 mg/L and is only second to the Avadi-Sathya Nagar stretch of the Cooum river in Tamil Nadu with a BOD of 345 mg/L. For the CPCB assessment, a river is considered as not polluted if BOD is less than 3 mg/L.

Gujarat also has six—the highest number—of polluted water stretches in the Priority I category where the BOD is more than 30 mg/L. Notably, in 2018, there were only five such stretches.

Of the 25 rivers monitored in Gujarat for their water quality at 64 locations during 2019 and 2021, 25 locations on 13 rivers were found non-compliant with the prescribed water quality criteria with respect to BOD.

The CPCB found high levels of Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD)—indicating high consumption of dissolved oxygen by microorganisms—on the broader stretch of the river from upstream Raysan in Gandhinagar to downstream Vautha. However, the HC has been rapping the state government and the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) on the knuckle over the pollution of even the smaller stretch of the river—from Vasna to Pirana—that passes via the Ahmedabad city.

Cleaning expenditure

In July 2022, Union Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri stated before the Rajya Sabha that a whopping Rs 282.17 crore has been spent on cleaning Sabarmati in the past three years. This included a 155 MLD (million litres per day) STP worth Rs 151 crore at Pirana.

Another STP having a capacity of 25 MLD and worth Rs 27.5 crore was also completed near Shankar Bhuvan, Shahpur. According to data from 2022, AMC spent Rs 4.81 crore in the past three years for cleaning of “floating and green waste” from the Sabarmati river. Deepak Patel, in-charge general manager at SRFDCL, said “nearly 6,000-7000 tonnes of floating waste is cleaned up each year.”

Dismal picture

Notwithstanding the cleaning activities, the river continues to receive untreated sewage wastewater as well as industrial effluent to date, as indicated by a drone survey and quantification of 52 outfalls (the opening from the treatment plants into the river) along Sabarmati from May 2022 undertaken by the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB).

In fact, the samples collected between January and December 2022 from the final outfall of Ahmedabad’s seven common effluent treatment plants (CETPs) that discharges treated industrial effluent into the river did not adhere to the permissible limits of pollution parameters. The drone survey recorded BOD as high as 360 milligrams per litre (mg/L) at the outfall of storm water drain passing through the Danilimda area and 265 mg/L from the outfall of a 60 MLD sewage treatment plant (STP). Ideally, an STP is supposed to discharge only treated domestic sewage/wastewater into the river.

According to environmentalist Rohit Prajapati, who is part of the court-appointed joint-task force (JTF) to look into the Sabarmati pollution, there are two major issues. “(First,) Flow continues in the Danilimda area where industries were closed down. Second, the discharge that comes from the industries through the Mega Pipeline and wastewater from unknown sources attached to the pipeline continue to discharge, despite the closure of non-adhering industries, which means there are still illegal connections,” says Prajapati who is part of the Vadodara-based NGO Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti.

According to Sabarmati Riverfront Development Corporation Ltd (SRFDCL), “the intensive uses (for farming and various other informal economic activities) took their toll on the river”. “Untreated sewage flowed into the river through storm water outfalls and dumping of industrial waste posed a major health and environmental hazard,” SRFDCL, which was incorporated as a special purpose vehicle by AMC in 1997 after the inclusion of the river in the National River Conservation Plan in 1992, states.

It further admitted that interceptor sewers and sewage diversion networks, which were implemented to divert sewage from the river and eliminate the pollutants, have largely failed. This has been primarily because of sub-optimal functionality—in some cases, hardly functional STPs and CETPs, the latter affirmed by a CSIR-National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (CSIR-NEERI) assessment.

Illegal and unauthorised wastewater connections discharging domestic and industrial effluents directly into the river as well as to the STPs and CETPs, too, have only aggravated the problem. Nearly all seven CETPs have been recommended to ensure influent quality of the wastewater entering the treatment plant to achieve the desirable treatment efficiency.

Meanwhile, 20 years after its ground-breaking ceremony, the Sabarmati Riverfront is seeing further expansion of another 11.5 kilometres in its second phase. Effectively, this will add another five kilometres to the existing riverfront.

However, the amicus curiae in the public interest litigation had suggested to the court that given the pollution levels, the AMC and the state government ought to prioritise steps to prevent further pollution of the river and utilise taxpayers’ money to set up STPs and CETPs, instead of undertaking the phase-II extension.

The amicus curiae also pointed out that the river has lost its ecological flow after the Sabarmati Riverfront and “carries only industrial effluent and sewage” 120 kms downstream.

The CPCB’s November 2022 report based on water quality monitored at 1,920 locations between 2019 and 2021 is a testament to the amicus curiae’s claims.

Before the court

The HC has issued a number of directives to the government authorities, AMC as well as GPCB following which several industrial units have been shut down owing to their non-adherence to pollution standards. The civic body has also undertaken several drives to curb unauthorised or illegal wastewater or industrial connections to the CETPs and STPs.

At the same time, the court proceedings have also revealed the extent of the pollution and its causes. The court, on several occasions, has also pulled up AMC and GPCB for turning a blind eye and not revoking the permissions granted to discharge treated effluent in the river, despite being vested with sufficient powers to do the same.

In a January 2022 order, the HC noted, “Unfortunately, neither AMC nor GPCB paid any attention to all the aforesaid provisions of law… AMC was expected to act promptly at an appropriate point of time, more particularly, after realising the conditions were going from bad to worst… It proceeded in complete ignorance of the provisions of the GPMC Act, 1949″.

It also observed that the AMC has taken “no steps” to review all such permissions/consents granted years back to these textile industries to bring them in tune with the provisions of the Act. “Unfortunately, even the GPCB, in the recent past, granted permissions to discharge industrial effluent into the main trunk line (public sewer),” it further said.

As per a CPCB inspection of the river conducted in September 2021, upon request from the amicus curiae in the PIL, samples were collected from 10 locations along the river. Apart from BOD, several other parameters such as acidity (pH), temperature, conductivity, dissolved oxygen (DO), nitrate, nitrite, faecal coliform bacteria (FC/FCB), total coliform bacteria, cyanide, fluoride and heavy metals like chromium were measured.

At the Danilimda-Behrampura industrial zone outfall, which receives effluent from printing and dyeing industries in the area (there are as many as 257 industrial units in Danilimda and 285 units in Behrampura), nine out of the 18 parameters exceeded the prescribed discharge standards, including that of Chromium. The BOD was as high as 466 mg/L. The report had recorded that of the nine sewage treatment plants (STPs), six are releasing untreated sewage water into the river.

The fallout

Several industries have been closed for over a year following the HC orders after reports and inspections of the units revealed untreated trade effluents being discharged in the river, containing heavy metals such as mercury 347 times more than the prescribed permissible limit. The industries have been seeking relief from the court to be permitted to reopen their units after submitting that they will be compliant with the pollution standards.

While zero liquid discharge (ZLD) effluent treatment set-ups have been proposed by the authorities, the industries have countered that the technology is not financially viable for them. Instead, some of the industries have sought to be permitted to discharge their treated industrial effluent through the ‘Mega Pipeline’ catering to Vatva, Odhav and Naroda Industrial Zones. The CPCB had, in its September 2021 inspection, recorded that the samples collected from this pipeline’s outfall saw seven out of 18 parameters exceeding the prescribed discharge standards.

Notably, the Mega Pipeline continues to carry approximately 15 MLD wastewater from illegal connections as on date even after repeated orders of the HC to disconnect all illegal or unauthorised connections to the current sewage and effluent disposal system. Opposing the industries’ request to join the Mega Pipeline, the amicus curiae, at a hearing on January 20, submitted before the court that if such permission is granted by the court, others too would seek similar relief that may result in 63 MLD of trade effluent flowing through Mega Pipeline-I, in addition to the 15 MLD from illegal connections that, in turn, may result into the RCC pipeline giving up in less than six months.

The GPCB, too, in an affidavit submitted before the HC in January had stated that “no significant reduction is noticed in the flow received in Mega Pipeline through illegal connection.”

In December 2022, GPCB issued a show cause notice to the Ahmedabad Mega Clean Association (AMCA), a state government venture and a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) that operates and maintains the Mega Pipeline for conveyance of treated industrial effluent from Naroda to the final discharge into Sabarmati, for not meeting the discharge parameters.

Subsequently, in January, GPCB also wrote to AMCA seeking an action plan with details of measures taken to remove illegal connections to the pipeline, monitoring mechanism for ensuring quality of effluent discharged by member units into the pipeline and action taken with respect to non-compliant member industries.

The ultimate outfall from Mega Pipeline that reaches the river consistently misses the permissible norms, says Prajapati. “The pipeline receives discharge from six CETPs and effluent from Reliance Industries. The JTF has recommended the AMCA to have the consolidated consent and authorisation (CCA) to operate the pipeline as is the norm so that they can be made accountable for the discharge at the outfall,” he says. But currently, with the unauthorised and unknown connections discharging untreated wastewater through the pipeline, nobody can be held accountable or be prosecuted.

“With CCA, AMCA will have to then work out a mechanism and monitor themselves before discharging into the river. It is also important to identify how much pollution load, in terms of kilograms per day, is getting dumped into the river instead of just looking at the pollution parameter compliance because the river does not have an ecological flow,” Prajapati notes.