No let-up: Dairy waste spills onto Tajpur roads in Ludhiana

Tajpur Dairy Association president Lovely Singh blamed the situation on the closure of the “Seechewal model”, a system of three interconnected wells designed to filter wastewater generated by the dairies before it is discharged into the Buddha Nullah

Streets in the Tajpur Dairy Complex have been waterlogged with dairy waste and sludge for the past three days, leaving workers struggling to move through lanes covered with nearly a foot of foul-smelling waste.

Sewerage water on Tajpur main road near dairy complex C block in Ludhiana on Saturday. (Gurpreet Singh/HT)

The overflow has triggered a fresh dispute over the functioning of the complex’s waste-treatment system. Tajpur Dairy Association president Lovely Singh blamed the situation on the closure of the “Seechewal model”, a system of three interconnected wells designed to filter wastewater generated by the dairies before it is discharged into the Buddha Nullah.

Singh alleged that the system was shut down by Rajya Sabha MP and environmentalist Balbir Singh Seechewal, after which the wastewater began backing up and spilling onto the roads. He said the accumulated sludge had made several stretches of the complex difficult to use.

Calls and texts made to Seechewal went unanswered.

Municipal corporation officials, however, attributed the overflow to the inadequate capacity of the existing effluent treatment plant (ETP).

Civic body superintending engineer (operations and maintenance cell) Ekjot Singh said the plant can treat around 2.25 million litres of wastewater a day, while the dairies generate considerably more.

He said the civic body was working on a second ETP to increase the treatment capacity and address the problem in the long term.

In the immediate term, the MC would clear the affected roads by removing blockages in the drainage network, he added.

The Tajpur Dairy Complex has around 160 dairy units and an estimated 18,000 cattle.

The complex has faced recurring problems with wastewater and cow dung entering the drainage system, leading to blockages and overflow onto roads.

Earlier this year, dairy operators had also raised concerns over the drainage infrastructure and the functioning of the waste-treatment system. Officials had attributed some of the blockages to cow dung entering the drains, while dairy operators had maintained that the existing infrastructure was inadequate to handle the waste generated by the complex.