File photo of the 6.7 MLD Sewage treatment plant awaiting commission at the Sirvodem complex since the last one year.
No cheer for Sewage-plagued
Margao, only a stinking town
GUILHERME ALMEIDA
MARGAO
It’s official. Commissioning of the two sewerage treatment plants at Margao costing around a whopping Rs 50 crore will miss the deadline once again.
Just five days to go for curtains to come down on 2016, the December deadline set by the Sewerage Corporation of Goa and JICA to commission their respective STPs at Margao have finally come a cropper.
Sewerage Corporation Managing Director Arvind Patil and JICA Superintending Engineer, Naik Parrikar -- the two agencies constructing the 20 MLD and 6.7 MLD STPs at the Sirvodem complex -- conceded that the two plants may now be finally commissioned by January end or February next year.
The delay in the commissioning of the two STPs implies that the Rs 193 crore underground sewerage network laid in the commercial capital around six months ago before monsoons continues to remain unutilized. This means that sewage waters from overflowing septic tanks and soak pits in the city’s Malbhat, Aquem, Vidyanagar areas will continue to find its way into the Kudchadkar nullah and the Salpem lake.
That’s not all. The delay in the commissioning of the two plants, the 6.7 MLD STP in particular, will imply that untreated or partly treated sewage water from the existing 7.5 MLD plant will find its way into river Sal further contaminating the river and the water bodies.
Inquiries by The Goan have revealed that resource crunch coupled with delays in connecting the two plants with power supply have been attributed as the prime reason for the failed deadlines over the last one year.
Take the case of the 6.7 MLD STP built by JICA at a cost of around Rs 16 crore at the Sirvodem complex. It’s now close to a year since civil works on the plant were completed in all respects, but the plant is still not commissioned for want of power connection. The Goan now understands that it’s not simply the power connection that is the prime reason behind the delay in commissioning of this STP.
Highly placed officials informed that delay in the payments to the contractor has also been partly responsible behind the present situation. Says Naik Parrikar, JICA Superintending engineer: “The 6.7 MLD plant is in the final stages of completion. No sooner the plant gets the power supply, it will be commissioned. We have set January end as the deadline to commission the plant.”
Sewerage Corporation Managing Director, Arvind Patil, conceded that though the 20 MLD plant was due for commissioning by December 2016, it will now be inaugurated by January. The 20 MLD plant along with the Administration building and other facilities are being built at the Sirvodem complex at a whopping cost of Rs 35 crore. “The civil works on the 20 MLD plant are also complete. Painting work is currently underway. We are confident that the balance work including setting up of the lab and other equipment should fall in place by January end,” Patil said.
Says Savio Dias, petitioner in the High Court on public sanitation: “It’s indeed shocking that the Sewage Corporation and JICA have failed to honour the deadlines set to complete the two STPs. JICA in particular had submitted to the High Court that the 6.7 MLD STP will be completed this year. The failure to commission the two plants only goes to show the sincerity of these agencies in addressing health concerns of the citizens.”
The petitioner had knocked the doors of the High Court seeking directions to the government and the PWD to replace the damaged North main sewage line. He wondered whether the government would at all take up work on replacing the damaged North line given its repeated failures to commission the two STPs.
