The Chief Minister gave a big gift to the residents of the Raipur city by inaugurating a new water purification plant of 80 MLD capacity at Bhathagaon during a meeting in the Raipur South Legislative Assembly on Wednesday. This plant is the first zero waste water treatment plant in Chhattisgarh. In the program, he also flagged off 9 backhoe loader vehicles of Municipal Corporation Raipur for solid waste management.
The state-of-the-art water purification plant has been built at a cost of about Rs 15 crore 86 lakh. The plant will be operated on lamella tube settler method. It is based on fully automated system. The water received from the plant will be used to fill six big tanks of the city’s Devendra Nagar, Motibagh, Nalghar, Bairanbazar, Sanjay Nagar and Mathpuraina and through which pure and clean drinking water will be available to the large population of the city.
Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel took the complete process and technical details of the operation of the newly constructed water purification plant and also inspected the control room. On this occasion also, he inaugurated two old water purification plants in Bhatagaon after upgrading them. The capacity of these old water treatment plants has been increased.
Municipal officials told that the newly constructed water purification plant will play an important role in ensuring availability of sufficient water by making the capital city Raipur tanker free. Along with this, modernization of old treatment plants and expansion of capacity will also make the capital tanker free. Six new motor pumps have been installed to increase the capacity in the already established 150 MLD filter plant at Bhatagaon. With these new motor pumps, the plant’s capacity to deliver water from 1706 cubic meters per hour has increased to 2046 cubic meters per hour. Similarly, six new motors have also been installed in the old filter plant of 80 MLD. The capacity of this plant has increased from 954 to 995 cubic meters per hour.
Know how precious water is for us…
Water is a precious commodity. Most of the earth water is sea water. About 2.5% of the water is fresh water that does not contain significant levels of dissolved minerals or salt and two third of that is frozen in ice caps and glaciers. In total only 0.01% of the total water of the planet is accessible for consumption. Clean drinking water is a basic human need. Unfortunately, more than one in six people still lack reliable access to this precious resource in the developing world.
India accounts for 2.45% of land area and 4% of water resources of the world but represents 16% of the world population. With the present population growth-rate (1.9 percent per year), the population is expected to cross the 1.5 billion mark by 2050. The Planning Commission, Government of India has estimated the water demand increase from 710 BCM (Billion Cubic Meters) in 2010 to almost 1180 BCM in 2050 with domestic and industrial water consumption expected to increase almost 2.5 times. The trend of urbanization in India is exerting stress on civic authorities to provide basic requirements such as safe drinking water, sanitation and infrastructure. The rapid growth of population has exerted the portable water demand, which requires exploration of raw water sources, developing treatment and distribution systems.
The raw water quality available in India varies significantly, resulting in modifications to the conventional water treatment scheme consisting of aeration, chemical coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation, filtration and disinfection. The backwash water and sludge generation from water treatment plants are of environmental concern in terms of disposal. Therefore, optimization of chemical dosing and filter runs carries importance to reduce the rejects from the water treatment plants. Also there is a need to study the water treatment plants for their operational status and to explore the best feasible mechanism to ensure proper drinking water production with least possible rejects and its management. With this backdrop, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), studied water treatment plants located across the country, for prevailing raw water quality, water treatment technologies, operational practices, chemical consumption and rejects management.
