Greater Noida development body to conduct survey of STPs in housing societies

GREATER NOIDA: The development authority will start a survey of group housing societies to check if their sewage treatment plants (STPs) are operational and guidelines framed by the the Central Pollution Control Board were being followed.

The Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority (GNIDA) will check if STPs have been installed in all societies, even the ones that have secured completion certificates recently.

Chief executive officer, GNIDA, Narendra Bhooshan said over the years, more than 250 highrises have been sanctioned in Greater Noida. “Among them, 198 are apartment complexes developed by private builders. We also have 80-odd housing societies. All of them will be checked to find out how they are disposing sludge and waste,” he said.

“Although for now, we are not going to initiate any action against the societies that do not have a functional STP, we will seek directions from competent authorities on the way forward. As per building bylaws and recent CPCB guidelines, all apartment complexes and housing societies need to be self-sustainable when it comes to the treating the sludge,” said Bhooshan.

In some of the societies that had been built before 2010, no space has been left to establish an STP. Similarly in some incomplete societies the whereabouts of developers are not known and residents are worried about their fate.

“Residents from our society have already petitioned National Green Tribunal as the developer has not made the STP operational yet. Greater Noida Authority did not act against the developer and hence we had to move the tribunal. They should at least give relief to the societies which have already flagged this problem before the authority in the past. Why should residents pay if the builder has been at fault and authority has remained blindfolded to the wrongdoings in the past,” said Nitin Srivastava who bought a villa in the society located in Zeta 1.