HYDERABAD: During its four and a half year rule, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi has ignored the issues of sanitation and pollution, resulting in water bodies in the State getting polluted due to regular inflow of untreated sewage. To add to the woes, the TRS government has failed to construct any new Sewage Treatment Plants (STP) either in the municipalities or municipal corporations in the State, except three new STPs of low capacities that were set up in Hyderabad.
In the last four years, in fact, the situation has worsened due to government’s negligence. In 2015, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) had released a state-wise inventory of STPs located across the country, that was based on inventorisation taken up in 2014-15. As per the report, there were 18 STPs in Telangana then, of which 17 were operational and one STP was under-construction at Attapur.
The 17 functional STPs included five STPs present in towns, located on the banks of river Godavari. Cut to 2018, as per data obtained by Express from Telangana State Pollution Control Board (TSPCB), currently the State has 16 operational STPs, one less than in 2014-15.
While there has been no increase in the total number of functional STPs in the State, five STPs on the banks of river Godavari that were functioning earlier as per the CPCB report, are now non-operational, which include one in Bhadrachalam, two in Ramagundam and two in Mancherial.
The only positive changes since the TRS government came to power has been that the 51 MLD (Million Litres per Day) of sewage plant which was under construction in 2014-15 is now functional and three new STPs in Hyderabad have been commissioned - a new 23MLD STP at Attapur, one at Jalagam Vengal Rao Park and another one at Khajagugda in the outskirts of city.
Although Telangana has six municipal corporations and 136 municipalities, the State has a meagre 16 functioning STPs and all of them are located in and around Hyderabad, which means that sewage from lakhs of households in other urban habitations has been flowing into rivers, lakes and other water bodies.
While untreated sewage is being dumped in water bodies in other parts of the State, in Hyderabad just about half of the sewage is treated even though all the functional STPs are located in the city.
The Handbook on Integrated Wastewater and Septage Management for urban local bodies in Telangana, released in March this year by Commissioner and Director of Municipal Administration, states: “Out of the estimated 1,884 MLD of and the available capacity of treatment is 685 MLD. The remaining wastewater is let into drains and nalas without any treatment.”
It further states: “Even the existing treatment capacity is also not effectively utilised due to operation and maintenance problems. Discharge of untreated sewage is single most important cause for pollution of surface and ground water since there is a large gap between generation and treatment of domestic waste water.”
Dangers of letting untreated sewage into water bodies
The Central Pollution Control Board recently released a list of polluted river stretches in the country. As per the report, eight river stretches in Telangana are polluted across the rivers (and streams) Musi, Manjeera, Nakkavagu, Karakavagu, Maner, Godavari, Kinnersani and Krishna. This is an increase from the last such report of CPCB in 2015, that had reported seven polluted river stretches in the State.
As the untreated sewage flows out of households, first it flows into the nearest water body and sewage contaminated water from these water bodies finally ends up in the rivers, which act as source of drinking water for cities. The CPCB divided the polluted river stretches in its report in five priority classes depending on the pollution levels in these stretches.
The stretch of Musi river between Hyderabad and Nalgonda has been accorded priority-I in the report as Biochemical Oxygen Demand levels in this stretch have been recorded to be as high as 60mg/L against the ideal standard of 3 mg/L, whereas stretch between Gowdicharla to Nakkavagu on Manjeera river and between Gandilachapet to Sevalal thanda on Nakkavagu where BOD levels have been recorded as high as 26mg/L have been accorded priority-II.
The polluted stretches under Priority-III,IV and V include the stretches between Warangal to Somnapalli on Maner river, between Basar to Khammam on Godavari river, between Thangadigi to Wadapally on Krishna river.