Agri Minister inaugurates sewage treatment plant at IARI

The plant has been set up in four acres with an investment of Rs 1.2 crore

An eco-friendly sewage water treatment plant was inaugurated today by Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh at the IARI campus here with an aim to address water shortage at the government farm research fields.

The water treatment plant, an innovative initiative of government agri-research body Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), has been set up in four acres with an investment of Rs 1.2 crore.

"The plant will treat sewage water of a residential colony of IARI without using any chemicals. It has a capacity to process 2.2 million litres per day. The treated water will be used to irrigate farm fields in the campus," said Ravinder Kaur, Project Director at Water Technology Centre of IARI.

The IARI campus is spread over 500 hectare. It has 290 hectare of agri-land for research purpose. Of this, 200 hectare is irrigated, while the rest of the farm fields face water deficit of 520 million litres per year, she said.

In this backdrop, the processed water from this plant can be used to irrigate 132 hectares in the campus, while IARI can save about Rs 18 lakh annual expenditure on fetching water supply for non-irrigated farm fields, she added.

Ravinder Kaur also mentioned that the running cost of the new plant will be lower at Rs 20,000 per month, as against Rs 2 lakh for an electrical water treatment plant.

Delhi releases about 3,663 million litres of sewage water every day and there is an urgent need to replicate this model in other parts of the city, she said.

Stating that IARI is planning to set up such plants in its campuses outside Delhi, she said that many research organisations and NGOs have evinced interest to replicate this model in different parts of the country.