Cleaned Ambazari lake has grabbed the attention of lakhs of citizens in the city but none has talked about the amount of untreated sewage water entering directly into the lake daily. Ambazari sewage treatment plant (STP), which was supposed to stop the flow of nullah coming from the Wadi and MIDC area, and treat the water before releasing it in the Ambazari lake, is struggling to fulfill its purpose. The Ambazari STP constructed five years ago by the Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT), was compliant with the flow of nullah at that time. However, the current flow of nullah has surpassed the capacity of the STP.

 

The current capacity of the Ambazari STP is 3.2 Million Litres per Day (MLD), whereas according to the sources, the current flow of water from the nullah is exceeding the current capacity of the plant. This has resulted in the untreated waste water ‘bypassing’ the STP and flowing directly into the lake. The municipal officials claim that once the Wadi STP starts operating, the waste water entering into the lake would stop completely. According to Wadi Municipal Council (WMC), the Wadi STP will become functional from September 15. It will have the capacity of treating 11 MLD waste flowing from Wadi and nearby areas. However, it is observed that waste water coming from other workshops established on the land ahead of the Wadi STP area will continue entering into the lake bypassing the Ambazari STP. When ‘The Hitavada’ visited the Ambazari STP, significant amount of wastewater was bypassing the Ambazari STP and entering in the lake.

 

However, the purpose of STP was to stop the flow and extract the water into machines using pipes to treat the water and then release the treated water from the outlet points installed at the back of the plant. But the reality was that the wastewater bypassed the extraction system and kept flowing further. P Mohan, MIDC Industries Association (MIA) President highlighted that the authorities need to upgrade their plant capacity. The treatment process being adopted by the STP is the unconventional process. Moreover, the authorities has to plan an expansion of the STP and increase the capacity by keeping in mind the future increasing flow of the nullah.” The civic authority may say that the once the Wadi STP becomes operational the flow of untreated water entering in the Ambazari lake will eventually reduce but the ground reality seems to look different. Automobile workshops in the area are also suspected of discharging wastewater into the nullah, which means that before entering in the lake, there is only one wall of purification, which is Ambazari STP. Until the authorities increase the capacity of the Ambazari STP, a significant amount of wastewater will keep entering into the Ambazari lake directly.