NEW DELHI: The Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) has not published its monthly monitoring reports for the city’s sewage treatment plants (STPs) and common effluent treatment plants (CETPs) for the past two months, sparking concerns over transparency in pollution reporting. The committee, which usually uploads its assessments by the 7th of every month, has not shared any data since September.
A DPCC official, speaking on condition of anonymity, attributed the delay to ongoing upgrades at monitoring sites.
“New sensors and monitoring stations are being installed at STPs, CETPs and major drains. These are expected to improve accuracy and allow real-time reporting. The process is taking longer than expected,” the official said.
However, environmental activists have questioned the timing and motive behind the lapse. Pankaj Kumar, founder of Earth Warriors — a group that independently tracks the performance of treatment plants — said the absence of the reports has raised red flags at a time when discrepancies between pollution datasets are already under scrutiny.
“The reports are always released on time. But this time, there’s complete silence,” Kumar said. He pointed to a Right to Information (RTI) reply from October that showed a major divergence between assessments by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the DPCC. In June, a CPCB inspection found that all 37 of Delhi’s STPs failed to meet key effluent standards, while the DPCC report for the same month rated many of them as compliant.
“We believe they have been exposed. CPCB’s inspection showed widespread violations, while DPCC’s own report suggested normal functioning. Now suddenly, for two months, there are no reports at all. It looks like they are staying low until the scrutiny passes,” Kumar alleged. Delhi’s STPs form the backbone of wastewater treatment in a city that claims to treat more than 4,000 million litres of sewage per day.The DPCC has not issued any statement on when the pending reports will be released.