Wetlands to help revitalise 30 ponds in Gurugram, recharge groundwater

Of the 30 ponds identified for revival, those in Daulatabad, Budhera, Medawas, Patli, Kasan and Dharampur villages will be covered in the first phase of the project.

The district administration is in the process of developing surface wetlands around 30 ponds in Gurugram that have been identified for revival. The district administration plans to use a low-cost, natural technique—root-zone technique—for cleaning domestic waste water, excluding fecal waste, released from the open drains in villages surrounding these water bodies.

A water body in Gurugram. (HT FILE)

Of the 30 ponds identified for revival, those in Daulatabad, Budhera, Medawas, Patli, Kasan and Dharampur villages will be covered in the first phase of the project. These water bodies that have the potential to be revived were identified after conducting a ground study.

“Around the ponds, small stretches of wetlands will be created by digging structures through which passing effluent can be filtered,” said Shubhi Kesarwani, project manager of GuruJal under the national Jal Shakti Abhiyan. “It is a scientific and natural method that has been used in different states to clean ponds and lakes. It is a low-cost alternative for wastewater management,” she said.

In the root-zone technology, the first step is the pre-treatment of the passing effluent in the settling tank for the deposition of sludge, grit and other material. In Gurugram villages, this tank will be replaced by shallow burrows for collecting sludge and sediments. This burrow will have an outlet that will take the clean water to the gravel area where reed-plants will further filter the water that will eventually seep into the lake.

“The plant gravel filter will be five- to six-feet-deep. Reed or any other plant species that is being used has to easily spread across the hollows between the gravels. It is because of these plants that the oxygen level of the effluent water improves,” said Chetan Aggarwal, city-based environmentalist and member of the GuruJal team. According to experts, the bacteria and fungi in plant roots improve the aeration process of the water making it rich in oxygen.

“The filtering action of the soil bed and aeration mechanism in the root zone bed gives clean water that could be accumulated in the pond,” Kesarwani said.

The GuruJal team has identified nearly 80 villages where household water, be it grey or black water, is being released directly into the village ponds. Out of these, 30 ponds will be covered till December this year as a part of the Jal Shakti Abhiyan to improve the groundwater level of Gurugram, which was declared a dark zone in 2013.

“The technology is best suited for the district because it has low operating cost and requires zero maintenance. There is no requirement of an external source to treat the water electro-chemically. Our focus is on the sustainability of the measures adopted for reviving the ponds that will further aid in groundwater recharge,” Kesarwani said.

Experts said the availability of land near ponds and controlling effluent water before it enters the tank is a crucial task. “This technology can work in those areas where there is the availability of land near the pond. Second, the natural slope of the ground has to be taken into consideration so that the flow of the effluent water can be controlled. The water has to reside in each of the tanks or structures for a few days before it gets released in the pond,” Aggarwal said.

Currently, in the identified villages the team has sent the water samples for testing the level of nitrate, phosphate, pH and dissolved oxygen. “The construction of tanks will start in the first week of September. Meanwhile, the hired agency has started with the process of contouring and measurements. The ponds in the villages have already been de-silted by Integrated Watershed Management Programme team,” Kesarwani said.