Many industrial unit owners loath to spend on treating waste water

Panaji: Many of the industrial units in the state resort to cost-cutting measures with regard to the maintenance of effluent treatment plants (ETPs) thus resulting in poor functioning of the ETPs, local environment experts told The Navhind Times on Monday.

The experts said the industrial units have badly maintained ETPs because they want to cut down on the expenditure and, therefore, do not go in for a maintenance contract with the ETP operator.

“Some industrial units set up ETP because it is mandatory and forget about its maintenance after a few years. Poorly maintained ETPs in industrial estates are also a problem of mindset, as local unit owners do not take environment issues seriously,” said one expert.

He said the absence of monitoring mechanism to check whether the existing ETPs are complying with the stipulated standards or not is another reason for the ETPs being unsatisfactory.

Inspections of the ETPs are carried out at the time of the units seeking consent to operate or in case of complaints from the neighbouring villages or nearby units of effluent being discharged.

“The Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB) has a shortage of manpower to conduct timely inspections which is why many of the industries in the state are getting away with discharge of untreated effluents,” said the environment expert.

Information gathered reveals that builders, hotels and small units are most likely to have poorly functioning ETPs.

Between August and November 2019, the GSPCB inspected 24 ETPs in the state of which seven were found to be non-functional with biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) parameters exceeding the permissible limit.

Of the seven non-compliant units with non-functioning ETPs, there was one dairy unit in Kundaim industrial estate, two laundry units, seven small hotels and three were large industries.

A news report in the August 27 edition of The Navhind Times highlighted blatant flouting of environment norms by industries in the state with regard to the treatment of industrial waste water.

According to the environment plans prepared by the two district-level environment committees of the state for 2020, a total of 209 ETPs in the state generated 264.7 MLD (million litres per day) of waste water of which only 3.4 MLD was treated before being discharged in nullahs and rivers. The state has 782 industrial units located in the 22 industrial estates.

To improve the functioning of ETPs, the pollution control board recently empanelled 15 ETP and STP vendors who have been permitted to offer services to units in the state. In the past, ETP and STP vendors were found to be fly-by-night companies, as they disappeared after securing the contract for setting up the effluent plants for units and did not offer after-sales service.

“Latest technology in treatment of waste water is so good that it results in nearly 100 per cent pure water. The treated water can be reused. Local industrial units can save on water bills by using the ETP treated water,” said an environment service provider.

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