Free run over, firms to pay for treating waste

INDORE: Industries will have to pay monthly charges for treating industrial discharge at common effluent treatment plant (ETP) from new financial year.

District administration is mulling plans to fix monthly amount from financial year 2019-20 that would be levied on industries for treating waste generated by them in ETP.

A 38-km pipeline is being laid to cover most industries that would transfer discharge to ETP from where waste would be treated before releasing it to Kanh.

Divisional Commissioner Akash Tripathi said, “Department is working on the costing front that will be levied on industries for using ETP. Most likely something around 25 paise per litre would be levied on industries from next financial year.” So far, pipeline has already been laid on 28km and remaining work is expected to get completed by April end, officials said.

The industries that are not connected with the pipeline are mandated to store discharge on their premises and then send to ETP through tankers.

Currently, about 1 MLD of discharge is reaching ETP that has the capacity of 4 MLD. An estimated 1.5 MLD of discharge is expected to come from industries once the pipeline work is completed. Tripathi said, “We are aiming to put a blanket ban on any kind of industrial discharge reaching Kanh without treatment. It is the responsibility of the generator to treat waste before it is released into the river.”

Associations of Industries Madhya Pradesh president Alok Dave said, “Transferring discharge through pipelines would be more economical as currently, industries have to send waste to the facility through tankers, which is an expensive affair and even availability of tankers also becomes an issue in summers.”