Ludhiana city gets 50 MLD effluent treatment plant

Kuldip Bhatia

Ludhiana, June 5

The city got an unique gift on World Environment Day as a 50 MLD (million litres per day) common effluent treatment plant (CETP) became operational on Tajpur Road for treatment of 102 dyeing units. Rahul Tewari, Secretary, Science, Technology and Environment, virtually inaugurated the plant.

DC Surabhi Malik presided over a district-level function organised at Bachat Bhawan while ADC Amit Panchal, Punjab Pollution Control Board superintending engineer Gulshan Rai and executive engineer Gurbaksh Singh Gil were also present.

In his address, Tewari said, “The CETP will treat effluent of 102 small and micro sector dyeing units located in Tajpur cluster. Even though most of these industrial units had installed their own treatment plants but due to lack of technical know-how and skilled man-power, the treated water, at times, failed to meet the fixed parameters and some toxic elements still remained in the discharge.”

Malik said as a long-term planning measure and to prepare the industry to meet the stringer norms for pollution control in the future, this CETP plant had been set up through a special purpose vehicle (SPV) and government had also granted subsidy to share the expenditure involved in setting up this plant. The state government was totally committed to curb pollution and efforts in this direction would continue, she added.

In another function to mark ‘World Environment Day’, deputy commissioner Surabhi Malik launched a drive to plant saplings along Sidhwan Canal with a call to the city residents to conserve priceless gifts of nature – land, air and water. She said the human beings could remain healthy and disease-free only if these natural elements were in abundance.

She made a special mention of Lets Clean Ludhiana, an NGO working for conservation of environment and other partner NGOs for their contribution to the plantation drive towards enhancement of green cover in the city.

The DC also participated in an event held by NGO - City Needs, where she made an appeal to the humanity to come forward to conserve air, water and soil so that coming generations could benefit from such collective efforts. She termed the act of environment preservation as a true service to humanity.

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