by Bikram Singh Virk
THE untreated sewerage water of the cities is a big problem in Punjab with its stink making life a hell for the urbanites. With no treatment facilities at most of the places, water flows through open nullahs and pollute the water bodies, including rivulets, water streams and even the rivers.
The Sutlej is totally black and stinking beyond Ludhiana, as the city’s effluents along with the untreated sewerage water fall into it through Buddhah Nullah.
The Malwa belt, where people use this water for drinking purposes, today is marred by cancer. None of the statutes or government dictates has cured this malaise.
A solution to this multi-faceted problem is a unique sewerage treatment plant, which the noted environmentalist and the man behind the cleansing of Kali Bein, Sant Baba Balbir Singh Seechewal, has indigenously designed and built on about six acres of land near Dasuya town in Hoshiarpur district at a measly cost of about Rs 18 lakh.
The plant, built in one month’s time only, has in the first leg three 11 ft-deep wells with a diametre of 30 ft, 20 ft and 15 ft respectively and six adjoining ponds of 170ft x 100 ft in the second leg, all built at the height of about 12 ft from the ground level.
Thick sewerage water from the open nullah is thrown through two pump sets in the first well from a height by scattering it on a platform for aeration. It then swivels in the well and enters into the second and then into the third one.
Sewerage water loses its thick slurry in the bottoms of these V-Shaped wells from where it is separated with the help of a pre-laid underground pipe and taken aside in the open beds. After drying, this slurry becomes very fertile soil capable of growing vegetable and flowers in flower pots and kitchen gardens.
The water from the wells then moves to the adjoining larger ponds of 170ft x 100ft, three of which are built in a row and gets purified automatically as it moves from one pond to another, losing its stink after the second pond.
After passing through the first three, water enters into the set of other three ponds parallel to the first ones. In the fifth and sixth ponds, the water is crystal clear and fit for irrigation purposes with all the healthy nutrients in it.
From here it is channelled to a 3 km underground pipeline taking it to the adjoining fields for irrigation. The tilt of wells and ponds is so designed that the water moves automatically with the gravitational force.
Daily around 10 to 12 lakh litres of sewerage water of Dasuya, having a population of around 20,000, falls into this sewer and irrigates around 300 acres of crop of wheat post-treatment.
Farmers who use this water are a happy lot as they have stopped using ground water for irrigation and their yield has shot up by 30 to 40 per cent due to this nutrient rich water.
Roughly, it increased the output of wheat by around 180 tonnes and that of paddy by 240 tonnes last year from these 300 acres, which means an additional income of Rs 40 lakh to the farmers.
Their fertiliser consumption has also fallen to around one-third of what they used earlier and approximately 60 tonnes of urea and 30 tonnes of DAP was saved in a year, which means a net saving of about Rs 6 lakh on account of fertilisers.
Since the farmers have stopped using underground water, the water table has also gone up fairly in the area. Kali Bein, which was polluted with its dirty water, has been spared of this curse.
In nutshell, this plant can be seen a model for solving the sewer woes of all the towns in Punjab and that too with huge economic and environmental advantages coming in as a bonus.
Punjab today has 134 municipalities and three corporations with a population base of about 85 lakh. Taking Dasuya town’s population as the base for all calculations, all the cities of Punjab put together have a capacity to irrigate 1,25,000 acres of land, thereby increasing the output of wheat and paddy by 37,500 tonnes and 50,000 tonnes respectively, which means an additional income of about Rs 80 crore to the state farmers.
They will also save around 25,000 tonnes of urea and 12,500 tonnes of DAP resulting in a net saving of Rs 24 crore. It will further stop polluting the water bodies and ground water and the people will be spared of diseases caused by impurities in water. All the rivers and rivulets of Punjab will again become clean with a single stroke.
Apart from land, with a cost of around Rs 75 crore, this model can be easily replicated in small and medium towns of Punjab. The only thing which needs to be ensured is that the implementation work should not be entrusted to any government agency, which may take years to commission the plants and at many times of what Baba Seechewal has spent.
It will be in the fitness of things if the required land and funds are handed over to Sant Seechewal’s NGO, which can build such treatment plants in Punjab in a single year! There is no better solution to the problem of water pollution in Punjab than these low-cost treatment plants.
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