Delhi: Sewage plants to miss NGT’s 2020 target

NEW DELHI: Though National Green Tribunal (NGT) has fixed December 2020 as the deadline for completing work on four under-construction sewage treatment plants (STP) in the city, it’s unlikely that the target would be met.
Delhi Jal Board CEO Nikhil Kumar said that work on only two of the STPs would be completed by the deadline, while the other two plants would become operational by 2022. The plants are located at Rithala, Kondli, Okhla and Coronation Pillar.
Once operational, these plants would have a combined capacity to treat 275 million gallons of sewage per day. They form a key component of the Yamuna Action Plan by significantly increasing wastewater treatment capacity. Currently, Delhi has the capacity to treat 607 MGD of sewage.
Kumar submitted that commissioning of the projects is a part of the legal contractual agreements between DJB and the concessionaire and the mutually agreed deadline cannot be breached. DJB officials said that the agreement cannot be preponed by two years. The targets for commissioning the plants are between 2020 and 2022.
The 70 MGD plant at Coronation Pillar is expected to be ready by June 2020, while the 20 MGD Rithala facility would be ready by December 2020. DJB had submitted that the Kondli STP (45 MGD) would be commissioned in July 2022, while the 140 MGD plant in Okhla would be ready by December 2022.
DJB vice-chairman Dinesh Mohaniya said that the NGT deadline was impractical and work on this massive scale couldn’t be finished two years earlier. “We don’t know why the Yamuna Monitoring Committee has given deadline relaxation for the Coronation Pillar facility,” he added.
On September 11, NGT ordered DJB to finish the construction of all four STPs as per an action plan. The order also said that environmental compensation of Rs 5 lakh per month would have to be paid to Central Pollution Control Board for discharging untreated sewage in any drain connected to the Yamuna and Rs 10 per STP per month penalty would also apply.
NGT had also asked DJB to commence work on all proposed STPs before January 1, 2020. Kumar submitted that some STPs proposed under Sewerage Master Plan 2031 were decentralised facilities and the projects were getting delayed due to non-availability of land. The Yamuna Monitoring Committee told DJB that if it wants the deadline changed, it should approach NGT.