GMDA must fix sewage system by or before December 2020: Green tribunal

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has asked the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) to fix the city’s sewage disposal system by or before December

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has asked the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) to fix the city’s sewage disposal system by or before December 2020.

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After a meeting with GMDA officials (and those from Delhi and Uttar Pradesh) on January 3, the NGT had asked them to augment sewage treatment plants (STPs) by the end of 2020 and clean the city’s drains as per previous directions issued on September 11, 2019, by the tribunal in the case of Manoj Mishra versus Union of India and others.

The GMDA is the custodian authority of the city’s sewage system and Gurugram has been on the NGT’s radar for disposing polluted water into the Yamuna through the Najafgarh drain.

“Since practically all the stakeholders attended the meeting, we have requested them for their suggestions, if any, before January 24 when the final order will be uploaded on the NGT website keeping their suggestions under consideration,” the tribunal, in its January 3 order that HT accessed, stated.

The issue of polluted water flowing into river Yamuna from Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi landed in the NGT in 2012 through the ‘Manoj Mishra versus the Union of India and others’ case.

In September 2019, the NGT appointed a River Yamuna Monitoring Committee (RYMC) to keep a watch on sewage disposal in Gurugram and other cities in Haryana and issue directions to stakeholders with timelines with mandatory executions to improve conditions that could help improve the quality of Yamuna water.

Based on the RYMC, the NGT issued a direction/order on September 11, 2019, asking the Haryana government/GMDA to build adequate sewage treatment plants (STPs) by December 2020 and clean drains that carry polluted water to Najafgarh drains within three months of the order.

A member of the RYMC told HT that the GMDA wanted the timeline to be extended from December 2020 to December 2023 to augment STPs and three months to clean the drains through bio-remediation.

“The bench denied an extension for augmenting STPs. Regarding the cleaning of drains, the bench allowed them two weeks for suggestions by or before January 24 when the bench will upload its final order,” the RYMC member said.

The RYMC had submitted its report to the NGT in December, stating that the city’s STPs were not functioning properly and drains continued to carry polluted water and thus the September order of the tribunal was not being followed.

“And this has been happening despite repeated warnings and reminders by the NGT. This is an offence as per the September order and amounts to a penalty of ₹5 lakh/STP/month and ₹10 lakh/drain/month,” a member of the committee said, adding that the GMDA has not yet started the bio-remediation of city drains to clean its water.

However, the GMDA sample reports of the past two months have been showing that the pollution level has gone down.

“We are trying our best to improve the situation and we will execute the NGT’s directions,” VS Kundu, GMDA chief executive officer (CEO), said.

The RYMC said that the tribunal came down heavily on officials for failing to improve the condition of STPs and drains that pollute the Yamuna water.

“We are working on bio-remediation and will inform the tribunal shortly of its progress,” Lalit Arora, GMDA chief engineer, said.