NMCG approves 9 Projects worth Rs. 1278 Crore for Pollution abatement

The National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) today held the 47th meeting of the Executive Committee of NMCG under the chairmanship of Shri G. Asok Kumar, Director General, NMCG. Nine projects worth around Rs. 1278 crore were approved in the meeting. Out of them, 7 pertain to abatement of pollution in the Ganga Basin and 2 to ghat development.

In the main stem of River Ganga, a project in West Bengal worth Rs. 123.02 crore was approved for creation of a 13 MLD STP and a 300 KLD decentralized STP at Chakdaha Municipal Town.

In Uttar Pradesh, three projects were approved worth Rs 422 crore. These include a project to intercept and divert 13 drains by augmenting the sewage treatment capacity of Salori STP by 43 MLD in Prayagraj. Construction of one 20 KLD faecal sludge co-treatment facility is also part of this project. Another project in Uttar Pradesh pertains to rejuvenation of River Kali East by development of in-situ Constructed Wetland System at 8 locations in Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Hapur and Bulandshahr was approved costing Rs. 95.47 crore. The wetland construction consists of making arrangement of horizontal and vertical filtration by developing oxidation, filtration segments as well as plantation inside the water way at one location.The benefit of the methodology to be adopted is no change in morphology of the river & no obstruction in the waterway during flood.For ghat development, one projectworth Rs. 2.84 crore was approved for Nageshwar Dham Ashram ghat in Fatehpur.

A project for development of two Sewage Treatment Plants (10.91 MLD and 10.66 MLD) for pollution abatement in River Ganga at an estimated cost of Rs. 94.12 crore was approved for Lakhisarai town in Bihar. For ghat development in Bihar, one project for the development of Atal Ghat Manjhi, Saran, Bihar was also given a go ahead at an estimated cost of Rs. 10.04 crore. Atal Ghat project includes development of ghat area for bathing, facilities, space for Pooja and other religious activities, drinking water points, flood lights for night, place for ‘shradh’ puja and ‘mundan’, landscaping and wet and dry dustbins for segregation of waste at the source.

Two projects were placed before the Executive Committee for Madhya Pradesh for approval, out of which a major project costing Rs. 511.15 crore was approved to abate pollution in Rivers Kahn and Saraswati in Indore. The project envisages construction of 2 STPs of 120 MLD, 40 MLD and 35 MLD capacities. An important component of this project is the creation of a treated water reuse network with the 120 MLD and 35 MLD capacity STPs. Another proposed project in Madhya Pradesh was for the construction of a 22 MLD STP and 2.35 MLD Effluent Treatment Plant in Ujjain town at an estimated cost of Rs. 92.78 crore for pollution abatement in River Kshipra. This project, however, was referred for further clarification.

For the monitoring of industrial pollution, a project titled ‘Pollution Inventorization, Assessment and Surveillance on River Ganga Basin (PIAS) piloted by Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) was approved at an estimated cost of Rs. 114.42 crore. The project envisages annual updation of inventory, annual inspection of Gross Polluting Industries (GPIs) by Third Party, annual inspection of GPI by CPCB, monitoring of Recipient Drains of HighlyPolluting Industries and Industrial Clusters, monitoring of drains, monitoring of STPs, monitoring of CETPs, Online Continuous Emission MonitoringSystem/Dashboard/IT portal.

A first-of-its-kind project titled ‘Survey, Investigation for Rejuvenation and Conservation of Shahdara Drain with nature-based treatment – Soil Biotechnology (SBT) was also approved worth Rs. 1.9 crore. The project envisages drone survey, bathymetric survey, field survey/data collection and investigation of Inlet Drain Discharge, Water Quality & Testing and Soil/Sludge Properties.

Shri Himansu Badoni, Executive Director (Projects), NMCG, Shri S.P. Vashishtha, Executive Director (Admin.), NMCG, Shri Bhaskar Dasgupta, Executive Director (Finance), NMCG, Shri D.P. Mathuria, Executive Director (Technical), NMCG, Ms. Richa Misra, Joint Secretary and Financial Advisor, Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Ministry of Jal Shakti, senior officials from the states concerned also attended the meeting.