Discharge of untreated sewage into rivers continues unabated

Existing STPs unable to meet the requirement

Untreated sewage being discharged into the Handri river, in Kurnool.

With a burgeoning population, Kurnool releases 56 million litres of sewage into the Tungabhadra and the Handri rivers every day.

The city, with a population of 5.2 lakh, releases most of the sewage untreated into the rivers. Currently, the city has three sewage treatment plants (STPs), each having a capacity to treat 0.8 million litres of sewage per day, leaving 54 million litres of sewage untreated, according to the Kurnool Municipal Corporation.

This means while the city releases enough sewage to fill 22 and a half Olympic swimming pools, each 50-metre-long, 25-metre-wide and two-metre-deep, just one swimming pool worth of sewage is treated.

Officials at the Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board (APPCB) said they had advised the corporation to construct more STPs in the city. “The last time we advised them to do so was in March 2019,” said B.Y Muni Prasad, an environmental engineer with the APPCB. The corporation has started constructing two STPs having a capacity to treat 12 million litres of sewage per day. Three more STPs are in the pipeline.

Road map

Moreover, the corporation has charted out a road map to construct 32 STPs by 2033. However, by then, according to data procured from the corporation, the city’s population is expected to shoot to 6.6 lakh. And sewage produced would increase to 71.5 million litres per day. Even if the proposed STPs become a reality, the city would still be discharging 17.5 million litres of untreated sewage into the rivers.