Industrial effluent: 33 illegal drainage lines disconnected in Ahmedabad

AHMEDABAD: Following a rap from the high court over the illegal discharge of untreated toxic industrial effluent into the Sabarmati river, the civic body has jumped into action. On Monday, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) claimed that it had disconnected 33 drainage lines that pumped untreated waste into domestic sewage lines of the city.
Ideally, industrial units have to drain their waste to an effluent channel that takes it to a common effluent treatment plant (CETP) after which the treated effluent is pumped into the AMC’s domestic sewage treatment plant (STP).
AMC officials conducted surveillance in the Naroda, Narol, Odhav and Vatva industrial clusters and neighbouring estates. The 33 lines that were disconnected were in Shahpur, Odhav, Behrampura, Gomtipur, Sardarnagar, India Colony, Naroda, Lambha, Isanpur and Danilimda areas.
The action comes after the HC admitted a PIL in October on the continuing pollution of the Sabarmati river.
Almost a month ago, the AMC admitted before the HC that “ill-treated or untreated or partly treated” industrial waste from “improperly working” effluent treatment plants (ETPs) was being “discharged into the Sabarmati directly”.
It added in an affidavit that “completely untreated industrial discharge” is also being “illegally discharged into the sewerage network” designed for household sewage. The AMC admission comes at a time when one of the members of the HC-appointed task force, environmentalist Rohit Prajapati, told the court that the Sabarmati for the 120km downstream up to the Arabian Sea is a “dead river”.