DJB claims sewage work complete,residents complain no relief yet

DJB’s CEO Ramesh Negi told Newsline: “The sewerage condition is much better now. Earlier,all the sewage used to flow into the rainwater drains because the system was not de-silted properly,also contaminating the rainwater during rains.”

Local MLA Subhash Sachdeva,however,said the Rs 370 crore project fails to show any positive results on ground. “For all that we can see,we were better off before the DJB decided to rehabilitate the system. Now all sewers are overflowing,and at times there are back flows as well,” he said.

To this,DJB’s Director (Projects) R S Tyagi said: “The problem now is with the local sewers,which have not yet been de-silted. The issue gets aggravated during the rainy season with sewage back flow. Though the average number of complaints have gone down from 100 to being 10 after the completion of works,the entire system should start functioning properly by the end of this year,when the local sewers are also desilted properly.”

Sachdeva feels,the administration into the project should be properly investigated,for “they could well have put a new sewage system in place for this amount”. The problem is worse in areas like Rajouri Garden,Janak Puri,Tilak Nagar,Raghubir Nagar,Subhash Nagar and others,he said.

Tyagi explained that the six main sewers in question were lying abandoned for over 10 years now and have been non-functional for high levels of silt in them. “As a temporary solution,the DJB had installed 50 trolleys in the area to pump the sewage into drains,at a recurring cost to the DJB. Those sewers have been properly de-silted and rehabilitated and the trolleys have been removed.”

With the rehabilitation of the system,however,80 million gallons of extra sewage is now being treated every day at the DJB’s Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs),which have so far been going under utilised,DJB officials claim. Of it’s total sewage treatment capacity of 512 MGD,DJB is now able to treat an average of 350 MGD with the completion of this project,they said.

The water utility also aims to augment it’s already under utilised treatment capacity by another 40 MGD by next month,with the commissioning of the 40 MGD Okhla STP.

“Now there is relief in West Delhi. With some new STPs coming up,we are aiming at augmenting our sewage treatment capacity to 612 MGD by 2021. There is no question of under utilising this capacity for years to come as sewage generation is not going to increase,bearing a direct relation with water in the city. The water generation for Delhi is now fixed for years to come,we have no other source of water left,”

Negi said.