Biggest treatment plant comes up in Ludhiana

Tribune News Service

Nitin Jain

Ludhiana, January 30

A 225-MLD (minimal liquid discharge) capacity sewage treatment plant (STP) has come up in Ludhiana to give a new lease of life to the highly-polluted Buddha Nullah.

The state’s biggest plant established in Jamalpur will treat the sewage water and other effluents flowing into the 47.55-km seasonal tributary of the Sutlej, which runs almost parallel to the Sutlej through most of Ludhiana district, including 14-km in the city, which it bisects, before merging with the Sutlej.

Besides, another 60-MLD capacity STP is under construction at Balloke village, which will start operations by June 30.

MC Commissioner Dr Shena Aggarwal said the trial run of the 225-MLD capacity STP was underway and it would be formally thrown open by the Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on February 2.

“Two new STPs of 285 MLD, upgrade of the existing four STPs and MPS with 418 MLD capacity, three dyeing cluster CETPs of 105-MLD, two ETPs of 6 MLD, six intermediate pumping stations, 11,310-metre interceptor pipelines to stop the direct discharge of waste water into the Buddha Nullah are among the major components of the Rs 840-crore project. It will ensure that only treated waste or fresh storm water may flow into the tributary,” she said.

Dr Aggarwal said almost 50 per cent of the total awarded amount had already been spent to achieve 76 per cent work for rejuvenation of the one of the most-polluted water bodies.

While several components of the project had already been completed, rest are in the advanced stage of completion and the pace of the ongoing work has been further accelerated to meet the deadline of June 2023.

In order to check the 137-MLD industrial effluent discharge into the Buddha Nullah, all industrial units have either been connected to the common effluent treatment plants or had installed their own captive effluent treatment plants.

While the project amount as per DPR was Rs 650 crore, the work was awarded at Rs 839.79 crore.

The total project cost included Rs 294 crore operation and maintenance cost for 10 years after completion while Rs 26.79 crore was earmarked as operation and maintenance cost for 21 months during the construction period.

DEADLINE MISSED thrice

The work, which was awarded to a Mumbai-based joint venture group at a cost of Rs 519 crore, besides the operation and maintenance cost of Rs 321 crore, was initially scheduled to be completed by December 1, 2022, but the deadline was extended thrice from December 2022 to March 2023, then May 2023 and now June 30, 2023.

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