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Himanshu Kaushik
AHMEDABAD, Sept 7: Surprised over increase in flow of industrial and domestic wastes through storm water drains, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has issued an office circular asking all concerned head of departments and the deputy municipal commissioner to check existing illegal drainage connections.
Municipal commissioner B K Sinha in a circular issued on August 31, this year said the deputy municipal commissioners should survey all illegal connections of storm water drains and corporation sewerage connections.
The corporation has also asked concerned officials to check all storm water drains and ascertain the exact number of illegal connections. The work, an official said would be taken up on a war-footing after the monsoon season.
This he said was the first step before the corporation takes up the Rs 98.70 crore National River Conservation Project for cleaning the Sabarmati river.
He said the deputy municipal commissioners have also been asked to check the legalities of all such connections and those with illegal connections would be forced to pay heavy penalties.
According to an official, the NRCP project's aim is to divert domestic and industrial wastes from not falling into the river. The corporation at present has two treatment plants -- the Pirana Sewerage Treatment Plant and the Vasna Sewerage Treatment Plant which were set up at a cost of Rs 13 crore and together they have a capacity for treating 180 million gallon liters of wastes per day. But the Pirana plant alone receives daily 288 million gallons liters of wastes, about 20 per cent of it is highly acidic.
This is due to illegal connections in the sewerage manholes by the industries in Danilimda, Vatva and Naroda. Sources said the NRCP project was likely to get along soon. This survey before the commencement of such a big project would come as a boost as all illegal connections would be disconnected before the project gets rolling.
An official said the AMC is also responsible for polluting the Sabarmati by discharging untreated domestic sewerage through storm water drains which are meant to carry only rain water. Because of this, one-third of the city's untreated domestic sewerage is directly dropped in the Sabarmati.
The main storm water outlet into the river is at Dafnala. Besides, there are also 22 other outlets at various places in the city. Meanwhile, the river monitoring department of Government of India has placed the Sabarmati river in `E' or `highly polluted' category.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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