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Upgrading sewage treatment plants: Chandigarh MC finally issues commencement letters to three firms
The CSCL will bear the principal cost of upgrading the five STPs, and the municipal corporation will operate and maintain these STPs for the next 15 years.
The Chandigarh Smart City Limited (CSCL) has finally allotted work contracts to three companies for upgrading the five sewage treatment plants (STP) in the city.
The ₹280-crore project of revamping the STP at Diggian in Mohali has been allotted to Larsen & Toubro, which was one of the four companies in the fray. Of the seven firms that applied for upgrading the STPs at Raipur Kalan and Raipur Khurd, the CSCL has chosen GSJ Environment Limited at ₹123 crore. For the Dhanas and 3BRD plants, the ₹74-crore contract has been given to Passavant Environment Private Limited.
“The CSCL has issued the commencement letters. The projects are estimated to be completed within two years,” said NP Sharma, chief general manager, CSCL.
The CSCL will bear the principal cost of upgrading the five STPs, and the municipal corporation will operate and maintain these STPs for the next 15 years.
After failing to get any response on its previous tenders, the CSCL had divided the five-plant project into three different tenders. In October last year, CSCL had floated a ₹700-crore tender to hire a single agency to upgrade all the five plants. However, the MC General House in November had not endorsed the proposal. Settling the matter, the UT administration in its letter to CSCL and MC had asked to cancel the existing tender and split it into three parts.
The National Green Tribunal (NGT), too, had directed the MC to upgrade the plants or face penalty. The effluent discharge from four of civic body’s five STPs into Ghaggar tributaries has much higher biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) level than the latest permissible level of 10mg/litre. A low BOD is an indicator of good quality water, while a high BOD indicates polluted water.
None of the STPs in Chandigarh has the requisite machinery to deal with faecal coliform, a major water pollutant after BOD level, the most probable number (MPN) value for which needs to be contained below 230 MPN/100.
Apart from polluting the Ghaggar, higher BOD level is affecting the quality of treated water MC is releasing from these STPs for the irrigation of public and private parks. Due to this, treated water stinks due to which private households use it less.
