PATNA: Extensive plans have been made to set up a sewerage network and treatment plants in major Bihar towns located on the Ganga bank in a move to reduce discharge of polluted sewerage water in the river. The said plan is being executed in Munger, Hajipur, Buxar and Begusarai towns in Phase-I.
While Rs 179 crore would be spent for executing the project in Munger, an amount of Rs 113.62 crore would be spent on the project in Hajipur. On the other hand, Rs 74. 95 crore and Rs. 65.40 crore would be spent for setting up sewerage network and treatment plants in Buxar and Begusarai towns respectively.
“The National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) has sanctioned these projects. The Centre and state would share the expenditure on 70:30 basis,†sources in the urban development department said.
The Bihar Urban Infrastructure Corporation (BUIDCo) has been given the task of executing the project.
The corporation has been set a target of completing the project in 18 months.
“We have already done the land survey work in Hajipur and Buxar, while work in two other towns are in progress,†BUIDCo managing director Bandana Preyashi said.
She said the process of acquiring identified land in Hajipur and Buxar would soon be initiated. A world Bank team had visited Hajipur on Monday to assess the progress made in executing the project in the town. World Bank, sources said, has provided fund to the Centre for executing the project.
Meanwhile, a source in the urban development said that around a dozen more towns located on the banks of river Ganga and Patna too would benefit from the NGBRA initiative. Projects for these town would be formulated soon.
“A mega project for Patna is already being formulated,†the source informed.
Incidentally, disposal of untreated sewerage water in river Ganga from Patna has been one of the major sources of pollution of the river along the stretch that flows through the state. Patna currently has the capacity to treat only 109 million litres of sewerage water against an average daily discharge of about 200 million litres of sewerage water.
I am conducting research on the wastewater management aspects in the river Ganga and shall be grateful if you could enlightened me from your perspective by completing an online questionnaire form, the link of which is as under:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/embeddedform?formkey=dER6cjFRRjk2QUxUT0VTZ25GWHpjSHc6MQ
I have intentionally kept the form short with limited questions so that it could be finished in less than 10 minutes.
I was wondering if you could forward the link to some of the relevant officials who are involved in wastewater treatment, management, policy, regulation, administration, etc. for their input. I have targeted four cities – Dehradun, Kanpur, Patna, Kolkata to understand issues and challenges related to wastewater management.
I shall be back to New Delhi in the last week of July and can be contacted on my cell number: 991 078 1999 for any clarification.
Thank you for your time and consideration to this request.
With warm regards,
F. Rahman