Talcher: The sewage treatment plant of the Orissa Water Supply and Sewerage Board on the banks of Brahmani has become defunct for the past 15 days after a power transformer was damaged. The result is the sewage of Talcher now goes into Brahmani leading to pollution.
The residents of Talcher use the river water for their drinking and other household purposes. Now, they are being compelled to use the polluted water, which has led to strong resentment among the people. It is also apprehended that the polluted river water might spread contagious diseases like jaundice and cholera.
Notably, the Sewerage Board started the construction of the sewage treatment plant for the people of Talcher, with a capacity of 2MLD (million litres per day). The foundation stone of the plant was laid February 22, 2015. The plant was supposed to be constructed with an expenditure of Rs 1.62 crore.
Initially, it was decided that the construction work of the plant will be completed within coming nine months. It was proposed that all the sewage of Talcher will be treated in this plant and after purification it will be fed to the river in the upper side of plant, about half a km away.
However, more than four years have passed since then and the construction work of plant is still lying incomplete. The proposal that purified sewage will be fed to Brahmani through pipes near Gopinathpur village was strongly objected by the villagers. The district administration has failed so far to execute this proposal.
Public health engineering department has an intake well in the river. However, the water flow in river is very low these days as water level on river bed has gone down. After the impact of cyclonic storm Fani, the power transformer of the sewage treatment plant has burnt. As the sewage is not being treated now, polluted water is mingling with the river water just 50mt away from the intake well.
Shockingly, the Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) level is known to be very high in the river water. This polluted river water is being used by more than 50,000 people of Talcher, over years together.
Reacting to this, the departmental engineer, A. Mohanty, said, “We are unable to treat the sewage due to the defunct transformer. The plant will become operational soon after the CESU authorities repair the power transformer.”
PNN