A sewage treatment plant (STP) will become operational on the Government Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram, campus on Thursday, offering a long-term solution to the disposal of waste generated at the large campus. Minister for Local Self Government M.V. Govindan is set to inaugurate the facility at 3 p.m. The STP has the capacity to treat 5 million litres (mld) a day.
The STP will treat the large volume of waste generated in all the institutions situated on the campus. With its commissioning, the medical college will no longer have to depend on the STP at Muttathara for treating waste.
The plant has been constructed with funds from the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT). The work was taken up by the Kerala Water Authority (KWA) as part of expanding the sewerage network in the city Corporation limits.
The plant has the distinction of being the first decentralised plant of the KWA in the State and the second biggest STP, after the 107-mld unit at Muttathara. It is also equipped for the tertiary treatment of wastewater, which can then be used in construction sites and for watering the medical college garden.
The KWA had awarded the ₹14.38-crore project to Tuticorin-based Sainath Envirotech. ''The STP has been designed with the requirement for the next 50 years in mind. We have been carrying out trials over the past one month,'' said an official of the KWA Projects Division, Thiruvananthapuram.
Effluent treatment
The plant employs the moving bed bio reactor (MBBR) technology. It also has 12 effluent treatment units for the treatment of waste with chemical content generated in the hospital laboratories, operation theatres, laundries and canteen.
At present, liquid waste from the medical college and the allied institutions are collected in two tanks and pumped to the Muttathara STP for processing through the Kannamoola pumping station. However, the collection tanks had developed defects over time, causing the wastewater to seep into the water sources in the region. This had led to protests, prompting the government to initiate measures to process the waste within the campus itself.
The KWA had prepared a detailed project report for the STP, which obtained administrative sanction on December 2017. The technical sanction was issued in September 2018. Sainath Envirotech bagged the project for ₹14.38 crore in September 2019.
Mayor Arya Rajendran will preside over the inauguration.
