How to avoid pressure on the ecosystem and environment in urban areas of India?

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How to avoid pressure on the ecosystem and environment in urban areas of India?

I have read about a significant lack of the sewage network and capacity in India's urban areas as well as the treatment of waste water prior to discharge into canals, drains and rivers. I have been told that septic tanks are in use in fairly dense population areas and that the timely emptying of these is not always controlled.

Travelling around urban areas in the vicinity of Delhi, I noticed signs of what appears to be serious anthropogenic pollution in the canalised drainage in and around the city. 

The deficit in the waste water handling system is a huge issue with metros like Delhi. Delhi metropolitan area drains into the Yamuna, a major tributary of the Ganga.

Given the impressive achievements in the extension of water supply in India, this is only going to put more pressure on the ecosystem and water environment. How can we avoid this pressure on the ecosystem and water environment in Urban Areas and Metros of India? How is Mission Ganga going to approach the deficit in waste water handling?

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  1. There are two issues related with the water, one contamination of fresh water and second is the wastage of water. We have started talking and chasing relatively biggest source of contamination i.e industry and agriculture (Agriculture chemicals) but are not seeing day to day contamination done by us. For example in India about 40% of the population is above 40 years age and using hair dye twice in a month. About 15 liters of fresh water is wasted and contaminated in one hair wash and that goes to the various aquifers. If we calculated mathematically 180000000000 liters of water wasted annually and contaminated n times. Similar when we talk about agriculture about 25-30% of irrigation water is a waste and is not required by the crop.  So if we start practicing from "ME" and educate common mass including farmers we can lead to reducing the pollution level to larger extend.

  2. Try to implement 100% STP system in urban area by hook by crook to reduce pollution of sewerage water and outlet produce of industries. 

  3. You can use a buffer tank or Balancing dam/tank to control the flow from the network. Again don't connect sewer network with storm water, just separate it in order to control the flow rate. All storm water management must discharged into artificial dam, as part of recreational and cultural activities. 

  4. The enforcement of Laws and Regulations fails miserably when there is multiplicity of Authorities responsible at State level and also at Centre Govt level. Rhetoric does not improve the situation sustainably unless basic management structure is right. For accountability, there has to be clear cut responsibility without an overlap and at least for River Water Systems, we need to have a singular Govt Organ responsible to PLAN, DIRECT, SUPERVISE IMPLEMENTATION OF PLAN with PMC also checking the Plan from all technical angles and strict D&B with O&M or if DBFOT can be attempted, it can do sustainable development of water bodies connected to the River System, ensure that Pollutants are not dumped in to the River System and the u/g aquifers connected to the River System. Even for Peak Rainfall, we need to have Garland Sewers along River Banks where Habitats are quite close by. We need to disallow flooding of Rivers and store surface waters for release during lean season to augment flows.

    Other supportive actionable programs like No Habitat or Industrial activity with in a certain range crow distance from Banks of River System, Only Organic Farming in areas earmarked around the catchment of River Systems, Solid Waste Management, etc. should be under Centre State joint schemes.

    The engineering, tendering, contracting and implementation of public works under the State Govt. depts. or Organs is by and large,  pathetic and highly corrupt .So, Centre Govt must not leave Funding of even the supportive works to state alone.

  5. Article published in The hindu on 20th June 2012

    The enigma of Indian engineering

    A narrow education is making engineers oblivious to the importance of human interaction and raising the cost of even simple tasks

    My time in South Asia has rewarded me with an enigma: why is engineering so expensive here? Why is it often many times more expensive than in Australia, my home?

    My search for answers led me to shanty towns on the fringes of mega-cities. We compared an award winning Indian factory making car parts for Detroit and Stuttgart with a leading Australian factory supplying parts for the mining industry. My Indian PhD student spent months with engineers in both countries, broadening his focus to water utility engineers and small to medium engineering firms. His knowledge of local dialects and customs was critical.

    He related a typical meeting. A young engineer quietly reported zero production from the machines in his production cell. His manager asked why but he remained silent. Both knew the reason. The machine operators were newly hired day-labourers because the previous ones had exceeded their 180-day limit. Other engineers said their machines were still not fixed by the maintenance crews. The manager sighed: he would have to raise it with his boss later. Direct authority from the plant manager would be needed to move the maintenance head into action.

    Daily struggle

    Discussions with water utility engineers revealed their daily struggle to coordinate valve operators who turn on water for an hour at a time every two days in different wards in their city district. Their mobile numbers are well known in the district: the more influential residents will call them at any time of the day with complaints or requests. They have to personally “twist arms” of recalcitrant customers to get them to pay bills, or have their sewerage line blocked at the same time as the water is disconnected. “That usually makes them pay up quicker,” they told us. Sewerage seeps from tens of thousands of such broken and half repaired connections into the scheme water lines.

    At a government school in the city outskirts, the principal showed me the smelly green water dribbling from the pipe into a below-ground tank. With no toilet or usable water, the children and staff left after a couple of hours. I glanced at the forest of antennas atop the brand-new mobile phone tower I could see beyond the school wall.

    Today, mobiles are everywhere in South Asia and can cost less than 1 cent per minute for talk time.

    Villagers on the Rawalpindi outskirts told me they had paid up to Rs. 50,000 to install their own wells with hand pumps. Before I helped install an electric pump at their high school, ironically called “Thanda Pani”, the children had to carry water in buckets for up to an hour a day just to use the toilets.

    To understand why villagers would pay so much for a hand pump, I turned to development economics. The ‘shadow price’ cost of unpaid labour can predict the economic cost for women to carry water from nearby wells or district water taps. Rs. 13 per hour doesn’t sound like much. Yet, a one hour round trip to carry home an average of 17 litres of water, often with extra time and fuel to boil it, results in a bulk water cost of about Rs. 1200 per tonne. Today, ultra-clean potable water is being delivered to my house in Perth at a total cost of about Rs. 80 per tonne.

    I have checked, rechecked and double checked my data because I was so surprised at this difference. No matter which method you use — a hand pump, bribing government carriers to bring water when you need it, buying it in 20 litre plastic containers — safe drinking water is many times the cost in Perth.

    Energy also costs many times more. With intermittent supplies, one needs a UPS or generator to run electrical equipment reliably. In addition, electric machines are usually inefficient and poorly maintained so it can be four-five times as expensive to achieve the same results as in Australia. Bulk users like steel plants have reported to me that they face twice the electric energy cost of their competitors in industrialised countries.

    How could South Asian electricity and water services be so expensive and phones so cheap?

    Could corruption explain this? Reliable sources estimate the additional cost at 15-25 per cent. However Australia is not immune: dishonest behaviour imposes significant extra costs there as well.

    There had to be other factors.

    First-hand experience employing local engineers in South Asia taught me to recalibrate Australian performance expectations, even though they had degrees from the best foreign and local universities. This led me to the possibility that differences in engineering practice are a major contributing factor, the ways that engineers perform their work.

    My research ran into an unexpected snag. When I started, there were almost no detailed research reports on engineering practice, anywhere. To cover this gap, my students and I interviewed and shadowed engineers across the region. Now we have some answers.

    Many people think engineering is applied science. It works the same in Perth, Pune, Paris or Pocheon: you will get the same results from the same experiments.

    However, engineering is much more than applied science. Engineering is a coordinated social performance of many people with the technical expertise distributed among them, like an orchestra. Social interactions constrain the results just as the strength of steel limits the height of our tallest buildings.

    In South Asia, hierarchical organisations, language differences, and deep social chasms disrupt the performance. For instance, artisans will only speak when asked, and will keep silent if speaking means loss of face for superiors.

    It turns out that engineering education, around the world, is almost blind to the realities of practice. We found 40 other critical aspects that educators inadvertently miss or misrepresent. As a result, young engineers seem oblivious to the subtleties needed to coordinate people and their education seems to impair their ability to learn. It turns out that skills like this distinguish the few truly expert engineers.

    It is no surprise, therefore, that most young engineers stumble into their first jobs, often feeling incompetent. There is no point blaming educators: it is just an accident that only a tiny number of research studies have tried to work out how engineering is actually done.

    A few expert South Asian engineers have overcome these education barriers, and they earn salaries higher than their counterparts in Australia. This is no surprise: they make their enterprises work. Sadly, most young Indian engineers never have a chance to learn their unwritten skills. Even though students in Australian engineering schools learn equally few practical skills, there are enough experienced engineers in most firms for young engineers to emulate.

    In Australia, a copious water supply and sanitation takes around 2 per cent of the economic resources of a family. In South Asia, barely enough potable water to survive can take 20-40 per cent of a family’s economic resources. Effective engineering in Australia accounts for much of the difference.

    Therefore, it is not the lack of money that influences national poverty as ineffective engineering that imposes crippling high costs for water, energy and other essential services. Good engineering liberates human effort for social developments such as governance, healthcare, education, social services and even recreation.

    Mobile phone revolution

    The mobile phone revolution has transformed expensive, corrupt, inefficient government monopolies with appalling service into thriving, profitable enterprises providing high quality service at minimal cost, around the world. India is no exception.

    Although we can’t be sure, there seem to be some key human factors. First, mobile technology increases investor confidence: people can’t steal the service without paying. The phone won’t work without a pre-paid card or reliable credit. Second, the technology provides reliable and efficient ways to collect a vast number of small payments and reassures users that their credit will be secure. Third, the social chasms between engineers and the technicians who work with the equipment are easier to surmount than in the case of water and electricity. Fourth, the saving in time, measured as an economic value, more than makes up for the cost for users.

    Success has come from human factors invisible to most engineers, inadvertently blinded by their education.

    I think the next engineering revolution will be based on understanding people. We have come quite far with rather little understanding among engineers: just a little more could lead to large improvements. A new engineering revolution could consign poverty to history, and also enable us to live within the capacity of this planet to support human civilisation. It needs to come soon.

    (James Trevelyan is Winthrop Professor in the school of Mechanical and Chemical Engineering at the University of Western Australia. His book How to Become an Expert Engineer is due to be published later this year2012.)

  6. LOKESH PUNJ, aparna choudhary, Garth Watson, PARITOSH TYAGI, thank you all for your responses and for your patience with a newcomer to the India water scene. These responses, together with what I am reading and observing and people I have met, are rapidly making sense out of the situation. There are a lot of good ideas out there, and data is also fairly readily available. Through these factors, the human capital and the country's will to succeed, and through co-operation between policy makers, institutions, business sector, professional bodies, private individuals, organised communities and NGOs these problems can be overcome. I look forward to seeing this unfold, and perhaps playing a small role. Best luck to NMCG and the community.

    1 Comment

    1. It is great to see that you are keen in resolving the environmental issues faced in India.

  8. To see that human wastes do not pollute the rivers, I suggest a bunch of following inter-related programmes:

    1. Control leakage of water from water distribution system after which supply of safe water 24x7 is possible.

    2. In all new area development and large constructions, adopt dual plumbing at the supply side to reduce freshwater demand and on the outflow side to make it possible to use treated wastewater to flush toilets. Further, it can be used also for landscaping and cooling centralised air conditioning systems.

    3. Strictly follow the principle that used water -- treated or untreated -- shall not be allowed to reach the river. Once a principle is set, engineering solutions are also found.

  9. Solution to this environmental catastrophe... Comprehensive development of infrastructure in all communities... Reclamation of all waterways through the use of organic technologies... The political will is lacking as there is no money to build this huge undertaking... We can provide a solution and in a sense an immediate solution (given time to build) to manage human waste and eliminate the environmental harm being done... It can be done but we will need the help of the people in India who can influence the decision of the governments... We will provide all capital through a Public Private Partnership which avoids corruption and gets the projects established... If there is a self-less individual with the civic mindedness to work to solving this NOW contact me at garthwatson23@gmail.com

  10. Hello Ian,

    To answer your question: only 21 % of wastewater gets treated before being discharged into water bodies. One way of controlling the pollution of water bodies due to wastewater discharge is to have a number of decentralised wastewater treatment system instead of having a few centralised wastewater treatment system. It is found from studies that while designing the capacity of wastewater treatment plants, the rural population (residing in suburban areas) are not considered. If centralised treatment system is being considered then it should be designed for urban as well as rural population and also considering the population projection. 

  11. There can not be any other prescription but what other Metros do in developed countries....It is high time that Centre and State govt wakes up to the reality that Delhi can never be a City deserving to be proud capital if it does not have 24x7 water supply and an efficiently operating Sewerage System besides a Storm Water cum Drainage System.

    Govt. is splurging money of tax payers but not caring to modernise the hidden utilities infra..what a foolish way to ensure the high growth of expenditure on Public Health... Insect carried pathogens proliferate and impact public's life very adversely -- Dengue, Malaria, Diarrhea are rampant in NCR of Delhi.

  12. Hi Ian. 

    We, at Bimestec Technology, have an Aerobic bacteria technology which transforms this human waste into neutral water. We are using this technology for Bio Toilets in India. It's a multi-strain aerobic bacteria.

  13. Cleaning waste water is not difficult. Getting helpful information to the users is very difficult.  Whoever monitors this site be advised. You have a political operative redirecting helpful info away from its intended receiver.  Here is an example / test run. 

    The ARCHAEA species of microbe will reduce ALL organic compounds into their elemental form. There is ZERO waste to be dumped into the rivers. After 40 years of health dept inspections and reports NO pathogens have been found and oxygen content has tripled.

     Results are water is potable and should be pumped back into home or business. Existing municipal waste treatments can do the same for community water reservoirs or just dump clean water into rivers that will assist the flushing out of contaminated streams to the ocean. This will eliminate dead zones and increase oxygen supply which will allow mass fish population explosion. The fishing industry will return.

     I hope this reaches someone.  Guy.  "Steward of Earth".

  14. River Stomach Floating Farm System

    The Problem:
    Mankind’s impact on the environment and water systems.

    What causes Toxic Algae Blooms?
    Nature in it balance, senses when there is too much nutrient and therefore produces a culling method by poisoning the fish to rebalance the nutrients.

    Problem is Nature cannot tell the difference between Fish Poop or man induced Fertilisers/wastes.

    The excess nutrients proliferates the algae and creates toxicity to cull the non-existant fish populations.

    My Solution:  River Stomach Floating Farm System http://riverstomach.weebly.com/

    New Green Industry: designed to intercept nutrients and rubbish along the whole River system.

    Overview:
    Thousands and Thousands of these vessels Globally, will help recover our planets water quality and return the natural balance. This System is 100% GREEN, no Land cost to add to production costs, free feed input, reverse nutrient load by % , Bio-fuel/food output, catch floating debris. A Bio-Digestor. Intercepting and reducing concentrations making it into the oceans and gyres.

    This system will produce Bio-fuel / Food / Jobs and restore the river/waterways natural balance.

    Passive energy to operate, simple design, many other unique features.