A system of septage collection and disposing is on the anvil with a new treatment plant coming up in the city.
The new septage treatment plant will come up adjacent to the existing sewerage treatment plant at Elamkulam. The project, for which the Suchitwa Mission has provided Rs. 6.1 crore, will be executed by the Kerala Water Authority’s project wing undertaking the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission works.
The new plant with a capacity to treat four million litres a day will handle septage that will have a high biochemical oxygen demand (BOD). The existing plant in the city with 4.5-mld capacity has a collection of less than half its capacity and the sewage has very low BOD.
The system is expected to bring in order in the way septage is disposed, since there exists none. Vehicles have been provided permit for waste collection from the Regional Transport Office. However, they have no permit for disposing it. “It is the risk we have to take in this business,” said one of the septic tank cleaning agents. The tankers usually manage to sneak it into some water body during night.
“However, the returns we get from the business are too low, considering the number of people who need to be paid off apart from the workers”, said one of the septic tank cleaning agents. A plethora of agencies advertise in the newspapers offering the service. The market had become highly competitive, said an agent, and the charges for cleaning a septic tank have come down from the earlier Rs. 4,000 range to between Rs. 1,800 and Rs. 2,500.
Around 80-odd vehicles are perhaps running in the district offering the service. “Vehicles from neighbouring districts also come in to do business here,” said another agent. Not all contact numbers specify their area of operation. Some people in the business have even seven to eight vehicles. People employed in the work have also turned entrepreneurs in the field.
The work schedule on the treatment plant is awaiting sanction from the chief engineer. Since no network needs to be developed, the project execution could be done on a fast-track basis. But considering the delay in most of the works taken up by KWA, the officials hesitate to give a time frame for the project.
