A new ‘sewerage vertical’ has been created within the Kerala Water Authority (KWA) to ensure sustainable sewage treatment and wastewater management across the State.
“The KWA being a Statewide establishment with qualified and experienced personnel in public health engineering, the responsibility of wastewater management can be taken up effectively. At present, the KWA has only 4% coverage in the sewerage sector of the State and this vacuum has to be filled to cope up with the situation,” a July 7-order, forming the new vertical, says.
The vertical will be under the Chief Engineer (Sewerage projects), who will be based in Thiruvananthapuram. There will be four circle offices in Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, Thrissur and Kozhikode under officers of the rank of Superintending Engineers.
The circle office in Kochi, formed in February this year, is already functional. When the office was begun, it was found that a single office cannot ensure sewage and septage waste management across the State. Thus the plan for a new vertical was drawn up, under which ‘Sewerage Camp Offices’ will function in all 14 districts under Assistant Engineer-rank officers.
Initially, the new vertical will focus on Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Alappuzha, Kochi, Thrissur and Kozhikode.
For the time being, the new vertical will function with available human resources and infrastructure, as the government is not in a position to approve new posts, given the COVID-19 scenario.
According to the KWA, the inception of a new sewerage vertical “has become inevitable” in the context of threats to environment and public health posed by rampant urbanisation.
Contamination of drinking water sources by sewage and septage due to uncontrolled urbanisation are posing major threats to public health and safety. Moreover, local authorities, entrusted with environment protection, are not adequately equipped to tackle this situation, the KWA says.