Safe waste disposal is a big challenge for the national sanitation overdrive. Punjab has been experimenting with centralised systems to tackle this. Has it worked?
WHILE STATES in different ecological regions of the country are struggling to get suitable designs for systems to treat the solid and liquid wastes coming out of their toilets, Punjab has tried to tackle the problem in a different way. For over a decade, the state has been experimenting with both centralised and decentralised waste management systems to make access to sanitation tenable and safe. While the state’s 86 per cent households have access to toilets now, it inevitably emerges as the first port of call to check whether the challenge of safe waste disposal has been tackled effectively as envisioned.
The state government’s Department of Water Supply and Sanitation (DWSS) has been collaborating with the World Bank (WB) to set up a range of waste management systems to adequately meet the demand in face of fast increasing number of toilets. The centralised systems developed under this collaboration include conventional sewage treatment plants (stp), Waste Stabilisation Ponds (WSP) and Duckweed Ponds. The sewer connection to these treatment systems are conventional sewer and solid free sewer (also called small bore sewer) carrying the liquid waste under gravity. A district is allotted one of the above systems depending on local ecology and needs. For example in Muktsar district that has water logging problem, WSPs were suggested. “This is because enough land was available and it is a low cost-low energy system,” says Amrit Deep Singh, sub divisional officer, Public Health and Engineering Department, Muktsar. While districts like Ludhiana and Amritsar were suggested to set up stps because the socio-economic condition was favourable.
This story is from the November 01, 2017 edition of Down To Earth.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the November 01, 2017 edition of Down To Earth.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
INVISIBLE THREAT
Significant presence of microplastics in Puducherry’s agricultural soil raises concerns for soil and crop health
Feeding off each other
VEGETARIAN MOVEMENTS IN SOUTH ASIA AND THE WEST GREW WITH MUTUAL SUPPORT AND VALIDATION
India's unhealthy patent amendments
Despite strong pleas, the Modi regime has changed the rules to impose a cost on those who challenge faulty patents
URBAN DISCOMFORT
Poorly planned, heat-trapping infrastructure, along with dwindling natural spaces, turn up the temperatures in major Indian cities
BLAZING SUN IS ON
Rising temperatures are testing the limits of human tolerance to heat. With their predominantly built-up landscape, urban areas offer no respite. A study by the Centre for Science and Environment on the morphology and heat patterns of nine Indian cities over the past decade shows how these urban centres are turning into heat islands with a potentially serious impact on human health. An analysis by Rajneesh Sareen, Mitashi Singh and Nimish Gupta, with Shagun in Haryana and Kiran Pandey
"H5N1 may be more severe than COVID-19"
In early April, the US confirmed the first case of avian influenza in livestock, along with cow-to-human transmission of the virus disease.
A PSYCHEDELIC HIGH
Driven by surge in global trials and low success rate of current medications in treating mental health problems, researchers call for home-grown clinical trials of psychedelic drugs
Locked out
Two years after becoming the only state to be excluded from the Centre's ruralemployment guarantee scheme, villages in West Bengal grapple with distress migration and debt traps
'Protection from climate change part of right to life'
The Supreme Court of India, on April 5, recognised that citizens have a right to be free from the adverse effects of climate change, saying it is intertwined with the fundamental rights to life and equality. Here are the key arguments articulated by the three-judge bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra in their judgement
Weaving dreams
Tribal communities in West Bengal slowly embrace traditional weaving to ensure sustainable livelihood