Sewage can be a resource, not a waste

New Delhi, Sep 19 (UNI) Consider sewage as resource, not a waste, Minister for Environment and Forest A Raja said here while calling for evolving cost-effective technologies for treating the waste water.

He said if cheap technologies were used in treating the nutrient rich sewage, its water could be used for aqua-culture, pissciculture, irrigation and urban forestry.

Moreover, the sludge from the sewage treatment plants can be used as a manure and biogas generated in the process can be used for generating electricity, he said.

Thus, the huge amount of waste water which finds its way into the river systems could be turned into a resource, he said Mr Raja was speaking at a seminar on 'Innovations in Wastewater Treatment and Economic Reuse' organised by ASSOCHAM and ACME, a technology development company.

He said the highly capital intensive nature of the existing sewage treatment systems and the associated major land requirements have become major constraints.

The traditional technologies based on aeration have become too expensive in terms of the operational costs in view of the high power requirement.

''The need of the hour is to select technologies which are appropriate to Indian conditions and are easy to construct, operate and maintain,'' said the Minister.

He said the organised sewage system ranges from about 35 per cent in smaller towns to 75 in some larger cities and even the larger cities have the capacity to treat just about 20 to 30 per cent of the waste water generated.

''Naturally waste water treatment has become a major environmental issue in India,'' he said.

He pointed out that the goals envisaging provision of clean drinking water, sanitation and other environment protection measures have been on the active agenda of the country only since the mid 1980s. The rapid growth of urban population has outpaced development of necessary infrastructure.

The Minister stressed that only active involvement of all citizens and public-private participation will help in achieving the objectives of ensuring clean drinking water and sanitation.

He said the new Environment Policy announced this year addresses the issues of technology as well as participation between local communities, public agencies, academic and research community, investors and multilateral and bilateral development partners.

UNI NAZ AD DS1305