NMCG approves 10 projects for Bihar, UP & W Bengal

Speed Post News Network

New Delhi : National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) has approved ten projects in Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh (UP) worth about Rs 2,033 crore. Eight of the ten projects pertain to sewage infrastructure and treatment, one to river front development and one to Ganga Knowledge Centre. These projects were approved at the 5^th meeting of the Executive Committee of National Mission for Clean Ganga.

In Bihar, three major sewage infrastructure projects at an estimated cost of Rs 1,461 crore in Barh, Kankarbagh and Digha have been approved. These projects will create additional sewage treatment capacity of 161 MLD (100 MLD in Digha, 50 MLD in Kankarbagh and 11 MLD in Barh). In Kankarbagh and Digha sewerage zones of Patna, presently there is no STP, according to a PIB release. It may be recalled that under Namami Gange programme creation of 200 MLD sewage treatment capacities has already been sanctioned in remaining four sewerage zones in Patna – Beur, Saidpur, Karmalichak and Pahari.

In West Bengal, three projects at an estimated cost of Rs 495.47 crore have been approved. Out  of these two pertain to sewage infrastructure while the third one is for river front development. Pollution abatement and rehabilitation works for river Ganga in Howrah and Tolly’s Nullah (popularly known as Adi Ganga), a tributary of Ganga in Kolkata have been approved at an  estimated cost of Rs 492.34 crore. These two projects will create additional sewage treatment capacity of 91 MLD in Kolkata.

In UP, sewage infrastructure work in Chunar, district Mirzapur, has also been approved at an estimated cost of Rs 27.98 crore under which an STP of 2 MLD capacity will be created apart from interception and diversion of drains.

It is also noteworthy that the projects in Kankarbagh and Digha in Bihar and Howrah and Kolkata in West Bengal will be taken up under Hybrid Annuity based PPP model in which 60% of capital cost will be paid to the contractor over a period of 15 years on the basis of his achievement of desired norms of treated waste water, according to the PIB release.

A project to establish Ganga Monitoring Centres (GMCs) in five riparian Ganga states has also been approved at an estimated cost of Rs 46.69 crore. Besides, two pilot demonstrative projects of treatment of drains using bioremediation method were approved. The drains, which will be treated with this technology, are Danapur drain in Patna and Nehru drain in Allahabad.