Project to trap sewage now gets Dec deadline

Fund crunch has forced water board to reschedule interceptor project

NEW DELHI: After missing multiples deadlines, the latest one being July 2019, the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) now hopes to commission the Interceptor Sewer Project (ISP), which aims to bring down pollution levels in the Yamuna, by December 2019.

The ISP will trap sewage water collected from 108 sub-drains of three major drains — Najafgarh, Shahdara and Supplementary, which would then be sent to the nearest Sewage Treatment Plant for treatment, before being discharged into drains. This would help to bring down pollution levels in the river.

“The project got delayed due to financial constraints faced by the two major agencies working on the project. We are getting the work done by sub-contractors. Till date around 117 million gallons per day (MGD) of sewage water, out of the total 242 MGD that the ISP aims to trap, have already been intercepted. We hope to commission the project by December 2019,” said Dinesh Mohaniya, vice chairman of DJB.

The ISP has been in the pipeline since 2006 but got delayed multiple times. It was initially promised before the 2010 Commonwealth Games and was touted to be the only solution to clean up the river.

“Nearly 90% of the civil work for the project’s all six phases has The sewage collected from 108 sub drains Sewage already trapped Dwarka Shahdara South been completed. But even if there is a gap of one foot between two pipelines an entire phase can’t be commissioned. The agencies have left several such gaps which are now being plugged before the project could be commissioned in December 2019,” said Mohaniya.

The project comprises six packages which were proposed taking into account the STP command areas, geography and DDA Planning Zones.

Even though just two percent of the Yamuna’s stretch passes through Delhi, the river gets 70% of its pollution load while flowing through the city.

A two member committee appointed by the National Green Tribunal in its report to the tribunal submitted in May this year stated that some new sub-drains have been identified. Out of the total 449 sub-drains, 108 have already been trapped by the ISP. Another 114 such drains have already dried up or have negligible flow in them.