Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation is preparing to treat wastewater from three drains through bioremediation before it enters the Hindon River, with the tender process expected to be completed within a month, according to Live Hindustan – NCR. The first phase will cover drains near City Forest, Hindon Vihar and Kaila Bhatt, all of which currently discharge into the river.
Four companies have made presentations to the municipal corporation on technologies for treating the wastewater. The presentations were made to Municipal Commissioner and Jal Kal department officials, who are expected to select the company offering the most suitable technology. The proposed process will use natural treatment methods instead of chemicals.
K P Anand, general manager of the Jal Kal department, said the project would initially be implemented on the three drains as an experiment. If the pilot is successful, similar treatment could be extended to wastewater flowing into the Hindon through other drains. The corporation has previously invited tenders for the work, but no company showed interest at that stage. A renewed tender process has now attracted applications from companies that have presented their proposed methods to officials.
The municipal corporation has said the intervention is intended to reduce the amount of untreated wastewater entering the Hindon and improve the river’s water quality. The immediate project, however, is limited to three drains and remains dependent on the completion of the tendering process and the selected company’s implementation.
The scale of the wider problem is substantially larger. According to the report, around nine drains in Ghaziabad’s urban area discharge approximately 246 million litres per day (MLD) of polluted water into the Hindon. These include drains at Arthala, Karhera, Indirapuram, Pratap Vihar, Hindon Vihar, Kaila Bhatt, Nandgram, Rahul Vihar and City Forest. The report also states that several sewage treatment plants are not functioning properly, resulting in untreated water reaching the river.
The Hindon flows for approximately 355 kilometres from Saharanpur to Gautam Buddh Nagar, where it meets the Yamuna near Tilwada in Noida. More than 500 small and large factories are located along both sides of the river between Saharanpur and Noida, according to an estimate cited in the report. Some factories are also reported to be releasing polluted water into the river.
Earlier plans by the government and administration to prevent pollution in the Hindon were not sustained, the report said. The new project therefore combines a limited pilot intervention with a larger unresolved challenge involving drain management, sewage treatment plant performance and industrial discharge. The next formal milestone is the completion of the tender process within one month, after which work on the three selected drains is expected to begin.
