Bhopal: Bhopal, the city of lakes, which has been declared country’s second cleanest city, has failed to keep its water bodies clean. “City’s water bodies including lakes are turning into a dumping ground for city sewage,” environmentalist Subhash C Pandey said.
According to reports, about 300 (million litres per day) MLD of sewage is discharged from the city out of which only 50 MLD gets treated in the sewage treatment plants (STP). This is because the existing sewer pipeline network does not have capacity to carry more sewage than this. As a result, remaining sewage gets mixed in other water bodies.
Pandey said STPs are inefficient to handle the hazardous waste hence should be replaced by ETP (effluent treatment plant). But even STPs meant for the treatment are lying useless. “The waste contains hazardous elements and chemicals, which can’t be treated in ordinary STP hence ETP were sought by environmentalists. I had filed a petition in this regard,” he said.
Pandey said STP at Kotra is not operating, which means the sewage in that area flows untreated and is released in water. He further said most treatment plants are either not functional or they don’t operate at their full capacity. Citing another example, he said water of Shirin river near Koh-e-Fiza is in worst condition as the chemical oxygen demand (COD) when checked was found way above the normal level.
Environmentalists have identified over 10 places in the city where sewage enters lakes directly as there is no sewage treatment plant in those areas. Upper and Lower Lake, Motia Lake, Siddique Hasan Lake, Munshi Hussain Khan Lake are main water bodies that receive sewage, which remains mostly untreated due to inefficient plants.
