HALF of the sewage from cities, towns and villages goes into the State’s rivers untreated. To reduce the direct release of sewage into rivers, the State Government is constructing 50 new sewage treatment plant (STPs) throughout Maharashtra. As many as 102 new STPs are in pipeline the work for which will start soon, informed Environment Minister Pankaja Munde in her reply in the Legislative Council on Saturday. Her reply came on questions raised by members Milind Narvekar, Krupal Tumane, and Hemant Patil in the Upper House.

 

Out of 296 most polluted river stretches in the country, 54 river stretches are in Maharashtra, which is around 15 percent of total number of river streches in the country, informed Munde. Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) has categorised all water polluting industries in the State in three stages and every industry has been directed to establish their own effluent treatment plant to avoid river pollution, said the Minister. For industrial waste water treatment, the State Government constructed 27 effluent treatment plants (ETP) all over the State and more such projects are in progress. The Maharashtra State River Rejuvenation Authority

 

(MSRRA) is a new body, recently approved by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to tackle river pollution and restore natural flows, focusing on polluted rivers identified by CPCB, with plans to create action plans, approve DPRs, and resolve issues like encroachment, Munde informed the House. The authority has prepared an action plan of all the 54 polluted river stretches and it already submitted to Central Pollution Control Board

 

(CPCB). Whereas the implementation of the action plan is underway with the help of different concerning departments, informed the environment minister. Out of 9,190 million litres per day sewage generated by the state’s civic bodies, 4,846 million litres is treated at 155 domestic sewage treatment plants, but the remaining, 4,344 million litres of untreated sewage, is flown into the rivers,” she added.