Somewhere in Lucknow....

The river Gomti would be cleaner, though partially, from Tuesday onwards. Around 115 million litres of sewage water, which otherwise finds its way into the river, will now be pumped into one of the streams at 345 mld sewage treatment plant (STP) at Bharwara near Chinhat. With almost all the snags fixed, the UP Jal Nigam is ready to divert the sewage water from its centralised pumping station at Gwari (in Gomtinagar) towards the STP. UPJN managing director Anil Kumar Srivastava said a final test will be done between 10am and 11am on Tuesday.‘If all goes well then the first stream of 115 mld will get functional,’’ he said. In the tests done so far by the corporation, leakages at various joints posed a challenge. Srivastava said the work of fixing all such points has been completed.

Workers at the site, situated about 15 Km from the heart of the state capital, are ready for the test of the STP, acclaimed to be the biggest in Asia. According to engineers supervising the project, 26 nullahs which drain into the river directly or indirectly, have been connected with two major culverts — Kukrail and Ghiasuddin Haider (GH) canal, each having an intermediate pumping station. While Kukrail has the pumping station near Nishatganj, the one for GH canal is nearing completion near the Gomti barrage. The two, in turn, have been connected with the Gwari pumping station from where a huge iron pipe, having a diameter of seven feet, has been stretched right up to the STP. From here on begins the exercise. The sewage would gush through the pipe into a chamber, from where it would spill into an adjacent one having three gates, each opening into a network of three streams — streams A, B and C. On Tuesday, stream B will become functional.

The three streams, each of 115 mld, will then open into a series of channels and sub-channels where bigger impurities will be filtered out. The channels will merge into a set of ‘reactors’ (digesters) wherein the finer impurities will be churned out, while the remaining water will get drained into the first aeration pond, and subsequently into a second aeration tank. ‘‘The idea is to bring the biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) of water up to a value of 30,’’ Srivastava said. The ‘treated water’ will then be diverted downstream of Gomti (near Indira canal), about 2 Km off the plant, with the help of a pipe.
The sewage will be subsequently dried and converted into manure. A senior engineer said that methane gas produced in the process will be stored in chambers for production of power through ‘dual fuel generators’’. This will work as a back up for the plant which is expected to consume around 1.5 Mw of power daily. But while Jal Nigam authorities claim of a grand success in the making, sources said a smooth functioning of STP would require a constant discharge of sewage water and regular dredging operations.Moreover, the chambers and digestors would require specific bacteria which would break the organic matter. Srivastava said they are hopeful of setting everything in place by July. ‘‘By winters, there would be a pure Gomti,’’ he said.