Maharashtra’s common effluent treatment plants fail to meet standards

The Maharashtra State Pollution Control Board (SPCB) has found that common effluent treatment plants (CETPs) operating in the state are ineffective. The latest weekly monitoring report of the board says that CETPs in the state are not meeting required standards. The weekly monitoring system of CETPs was put in place after an order of Bombay High Court in November last year.

Parameters like pH value, biological oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) of the treated effluent water are used by the board to ascertain the level of pollution.  The permissible pH range is between 5.5 and 9. The standard BOD should be around 30 mg/l. Biological oxygen demand is an indicator of oxygen available in water. High BOD values indicate polluted water—the water has less oxygen. Normal river water has a BOD of 5mg/l. The standard COD (chemical oxygen demand) is 250 mg/l. This is a measure of organic pollutants in the water.

The report has revealed that the treated effluent of only seven CETPs meet norms. The CETP at Butibori MIDC, ACMA, Chikholi-Morivali, Ambarnath and Thane-Belapur, all in Thane district, Kurkumbh in Pune and Waluj in Aurangabad meet the norms while the remaining sixteen do not. Ichalkaranji Textile Development Cluster in Kolhapur and Green field CETP plant in Solapur are the worst when it comes to complying with the standards, says the weekly report. (See graph)

The Bombay High Court directions followed a petition filed two years ago by the residents of the state, alleging that CETP plants are not meeting standards. The petition sought a ban on all new industries in these industrial clusters till the CETPs start functioning properly. The high court had passed many interim orders for regulating CETPs in the state. The court during its initial hearings noted that the regional officers have taken strict actions like plant closure on non compliance. But these orders got diluted by the senior officials when they interfered and levied fines as a solution when the companies filed appeals.

In December 2011, the court said senior officials should pass strict orders instead of levying fines. The court also made CETP operators more accountable. They were ordered to take the responsibility of filing reports on polluting industries to SPCB (see ‘Timeline of CETP case’).