A ‘Swachh Andhra’ dustcart rushes in discreetly on the Krishna riverbed. Laden with a heap of garbage, with slimy liquids oozing out from gaps in the tailgate, the truck wades through tonnes of filth to reach the farthest point. All this trouble, to avoid being seen and shooed away by local residents.
Pigs wallowing amid coconut shells scurry away as the driver quickly hops off the truck, leaving the key in the ignition. What happens next is an everyday sight under the Kanaka Durga Varadhi (bridge).
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He unloads rusted scrap, broken bricks, tattered clothes, shattered glass, leftover food and used syringes and condoms next to a yellowish pond choked with polythene on the river, a major water source for the district and Vijayawada. And bolts away.
As most water of the river is stored upstream the Prakasam barrage, the seemingly barren riverbed, a landscape punctuated by small ponds and rivulets, has become a wasteland for many.
Grappling with urbanisation, the Tadepalli municipality is resorting to desperate measures to deal with 30 tonnes of waste it generates every day.
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Without a designated landfill, a 200 metre-wide tract of the riverbed is being used as a dumpsite “since time immemorial”, as a senior official of the Pollution Control Board (APPCB) puts it.
As per the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016, waste shouldn’t be thrown or burnt in public spaces or water bodies and a landfill site should be at least a 100 metres away from a river.
“We have been serving notices on the municipality since 2014 instructing them to stop dumping waste there, but to no avail,” says the official.
To treat effluents, Tadepalli has a .2 MLD (millions litres a day) sewage treatment plant (STP). However, the unit doesn’t meet the prescribed standards and has been functioning for more than 10 months without a consent for operation (CFO) of the APPCB under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974.
As regards the dumping of waste, Tadepalli Commissioner B. Siva Reddy said, “Sometimes, our contract workers make the mistake of dumping waste on the riverbed. We have identified those responsible and punished them. We will install CC cameras there in two months.”
The municipality is among the seven others that’ll supply waste to the Jindal energy-from-waste power plant, coming up in Guntur. “It’ll be completed in a year. We’ll stop dumping waste on the riverbed then,” says Mr. Reddy.
But, can the river wait that long?
Stinking mix
Downstream, the Vijayawada Club, boasting pristine and green lawns, regularly disposes of waste right at the spot where it releases effluents from two pipes into the river. As a result, a stinking mix of water and filth, thick and dark, with a swarm of bees buzzing over stuck bottles and cans, lays stagnant against the bund of the club, which is a getaway for city elites.
Ajay Katragadda, an activist, has seen the heap become bigger and the muck wider since he started coming to clean the riverbed in 2013. “The irony is several Club members have joined me in the drives,” he says.
“We will surely take corrective measures and stop dumping waste. Within months you’ll see changes,” says Club Secretary Jawahar Gottipati.
The 60,000-litre per day STP in the premises doesn’t have the CFO too. Moreover, The APPCB, on an inspection on October 5, found that the club was discharging untreated waste into the river. Mr. Gottipati said they planned to rope in experts to optimise the unit.
Samples collected by The Hindu from water bodies abutting on the Tadepalli dumpsite and below the point of discharge of effluents by the Club, and tested at a government-run lab revealed that they all transgressed the standards, according to the APPCB.
Burning of waste by both the establishments has aggravated pollution levels.