QUEEN’S ROAD: A Tertiary Treatment Plant (TTP) to treat sewage water and serve as a lifeline to industries coming up on 3,000 acres near the Kempegowda airport is suffering from costly delays.
When the plant gets operational, it is expected to supply 40 Million Litres Per Day (MLD) to over 450 industrial units in this area and surrounding zones to meet all their requirements, barring drinking and cooking, said Narayana, Chief Engineer, New Initiatives and New Water, Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board.
“The delay is due to problems experienced in introducing a new technology at the plant. This is being tried out for the first time in Bengaluru. It involves using glass-reinforced plastic pipes where the glass is held in place by plastic on either side,” he said.
While GRP pipes, as they are called, have been used formerly in gravity lines where water flows from natural sources, this is the first time, it is being used in a situation where water is being pumped (known in technical parlance as Raising Main activity).
All electrical, mechanical and steel work related to the plant is ready and only the distribution pipeline has to be put in place. “It might take till March-end or April to begin operations now,” Narayana informed.
Right now, the Secondary Treatment Plant (STP) at Raja Canal treats 40 MLD every day and it is being let out into the canal. The chief reason for this is that after secondary treatment, the water still contains high levels of organic pollutants like Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD) and Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD).
The BoD would be around 30 and the COD around 20. If these are brought down to less than 5 and less than 20 respectively, using Tertiary treatment methods, then the water is fit for industrial purposes.
“It is exactly this that the plant is striving to achieve by treating the water from the STP at Raja Canal,” informs the BWSSB official.
If this water is further mixed with rainwater and treated again, the final product will be fit for consumption, the CE informed.
A Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board official said they had been informed the treatment plant would be ready by August 2014. This was later pushed to December and now to the end of February.
A high-level inspection team, which included Rathna Prabha, Additional Chief Secretary of the Commerce and Industries Department, visited the plant on Saturday to take stock.
Only Shell has begun construction at the spot and it is using tankers and borewells to meet its water needs, the official said.