Dushyant Singh Pundir
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, September 24
The Municipal Corporation (MC) has been able to supply only 6-9 MGD of tertiary-treated water instead of 20 MGD as planned in the city, finds the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in its latest report tabled in Parliament yesterday.
The city had a gross demand for drinking water of about110 MGD (million gallons per day), which is met 50 MGD from the Bhakhra Canal, 16 MGD from the Bhakhra mainline and 24 MGD from underground water sources leaving a shortage of 20 MGD.
The report states that the MC had decided to implement a project to design and build a tertiary treatment plant and associated facilities with a capacity of 10 MGD, in addition to an existing tertiary treatment plant (TTP) of 10 MGD, to treat the discharge from its sewerage treatment plants (STPs), in order to supply treated water for irrigation purposes replacing potable water otherwise being used.
The design wrongly assumed sufficient availability of sewage water, one of the underground reservoirs was shifted to the older network with lower than required discharge capacity of pumps installed at both plants and the old STP was not technically upgraded. Moreover, the MC did not ensure the required biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) level i.e. below 5mg/l in the output of TTP likely leading to non-acceptance of treated water among the consumers.
Moreover, the MC could not recover the 43 per cent of the cost of operation and maintenance of the project as planned. Treated water was supplied free to the green spaces being maintained by the MC’s horticulture wing.
The MC also did not bill the tertiary water connections. The audit report found that the intended results could not be achieved even after 6 to 7 years after the completion of the project and the audit could not assure itself of the viability of the project.
from The Tribune https://ift.tt/3mYhSez
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