Greater Noida, UPPCB discuss sewer issues in villages

The Greater Noida authority on Monday held a meeting with the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) to discuss the issues pertaining to the linking of 93 urban villages in the city with the main sewerage system.

The meeting was held after the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on January 4 asked the agencies concerned to discuss the issue and come up with a solution. In December last year, environmentalist Akash Vashishtha had filed a plea before the NGT, alleging that provisions of the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 were being violated by the Greater Noida authority, leading to the contamination of groundwater.

According to authority officials, of 93 villages, six villages’ sewer lines have been connected to various sewage treatment plants (STPs), while 17 more villages having sewer lines will be connected with the STPs by August 31 this year and 35 others will be connected by March 31, 2023.

However, the officials said that the remaining 35 villages, which do not have sewer lines, are geographically located in a way that laying new sewer lines there is difficult. They said that Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee has been roped in to study the situation in these 35 villages and suggest a permanent solution.

“We have come up with an interim arrangement for these 35 villages where connecting the sewer lines is taking time. In these villages, people have individual septic tanks from where the sewage was disposed of haphazardly. We have now created accepting chambers and the faecal sludge from these septic tanks now comes to our sewerage system and is being treated regularly,” said Narendra Bhooshan, chief executive officer of the authority.

He said that the city will soon develop three more STPs that will be able to manage the city’s entire sewage treatment needs. At present, the city has four STPs at different locations.

“We will be floating tenders for the three new STPs soon,” said Bhooshan.

According to UPPCB officials, the 35 villages where sewer lines are not connected so far are the villages where sewer lines were never laid.

“The authority is already working on connecting all 93 villages with the city’s main sewerage system and STPs. We had collected 87 water samples from ponds around these villages and found that the level of pollutants was higher than the permissible limits. However, we believe that the things will become normal once all the villages are connected with the main sewerage system,” said Bhuvan Yadav, regional officer, UPPCB, Greater Noida.

He added that as per NGT instructions, the water samples can be collected after the sewer lines are connected to check the level of pollutants again.