Nagpur: The Nagpur Municipal Corporation’s (NMC) new
sewage treatment plant (STP), with installed capacity of 200 million litres per day (MLD), has started trial operations. At present, the STP is treating 80 MLD sewage.
NMC officials told TOI the STP will be commissioned officially within a month. “A team of engineers from Neeri and NMC’s JNNURM cell has started performance and parameters analysis of the project. The team will check whether the STP is able to treat 200 MLD, and whether treated sewage water parameters are as per Maharashtra Pollution Control Board’s (MPCB) norms etc,” he said.
After construction began in October 2015, the STP was second of NMC, after the 130 MLD STP constructed and commissioned in association with Mahagenco under the central government’s JNNURM scheme two years ago. The new STP is the first to be developed under PPP model.
A consortium of three private companies, including city-based Vishvaraj Infrastructure Limited (VIL), has developed the project at a cost of around Rs236 crore. The private operator will also operate and maintain the plant for 30 years.
To prevent burden of repayment of Rs960 crore to the private operator, NMC has three months ago entered into a MoU with Mahagenco to supply 150 MLD treated sewage from the STP to Koradi and Khaparkheda thermal power stations. NMC is planning to sell the remaining 50 MLD to NTPC’s Mouda thermal power station.
With full commissioning of the STP, NMC’s total sewage treatment capacity will increase to 330 MLD of total generation of around 500 MLD. This will reduce pollution level in Kanhan and Wainganga rivers, and Gosikhurd irrigation project to a great extent as untreated sewage of the city flows into these water bodies and polluted the water via Nag river.