DJB’s plans to tackle unclean Yamuna: more drains, sewage treatment plants

Untreated sewage and industrial waste dumped in the city’s drains and eventually flowing into the Yamuna, along with no desilting or channelisation of drains...

Untreated sewage and industrial waste dumped in the city’s drains and eventually flowing into the Yamuna, along with no desilting or channelisation of drains, are among the major factors polluting the river’s 22-km stretch in Delhi. This was pointed out by the DJB at Water Asia 08 — a three-day exhibition on the water industry to tackle the unprecedented growth in the demand of water that ended on Friday.

The exhibition-cum-conference saw over a 100 participants from more than 12 countries exhibiting the latest technologies and equipment in sewage water treatment and wastewater treatment.

A presentation made by the agency’s Chief Engineer R S Tyagi on ‘Pollution in River Yamuna and Action Plan of Delhi Jal Board’, underlined the fact that a large part of Delhi that still remains without sewerage facilities — none of the 189 rural villages in Delhi have municipal sewerage yet. The 1,500 unauthorised colonies and 1,080 JJ clusters too share the same fate. Out of a total number of 567 unauthorised-regularised colonies in Delhi, 44 are still to have sewage, while 27 out of the 189 urban villages in Delhi are in the same boat.

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Among the top priorities for the DJB and the Delhi government will now be to provide sewerage facilities in these areas, and desilting and refurbishing the old sewerage lines. Work on the same has already been taken up by the Board. A detailed report by its project management consultants, M/s Engineers India Limited, is due by December 15. The groundwork on DJB’s Interceptor Sewage Plan is slated to begin in March 2009 and will be completed by January 2012.

Another solution was the construction of sewage treatment plants (STP) on the mouth of major drains. The total discharge of the 17 drains in Delhi is over 613 million gallons per day.

At least 78 small drains fall into the Najafgarh drain, 40 into the Shahdara drain and at least 103 fall into the supplementary drain. The DJB recommended intercepting the sewers along these drains, which will in turn be treated at the nearest STP. DJB plans to tap 13 in the existing trunk sewers. The capacity of the existing STPs will be increased to treat the total discharge.