'Nirmal Ganga' a reality for Varanasi soon: Government

With new sewage treatment plants coming up, the dream of Varanasi residents and visitors to have a 'Nirmal Ganga' (clean Ganga) will soon become a reality, the Water Resources Ministry said on Friday.

Varanasi, the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, currently generates an estimated 300 million litres per day (MLD) of sewage, which is expected to increase to 390 MLD by 2030.

The three existing sewage treatment plants at Dinapur, Bhagwanpur and DLW treat only 102 MLD of sewage. The remaining flows directly into the Ganga through Varuna and Assi rivers.

"To bridge this gap, a 140 MLD sewage treatment plant at Dinapur and a 120 MLD plant at Goitha are being constructed. These projects are at an advanced stage of construction and will be commissioned before March 2018," the Ministry said in a release.

Apart from this, a 50 MLD plant at Ramana has also been awarded under hybrid annuity based public-private partnership model to exclusively address the sewage treatment requirements of Assi BHU area, it said.

"Together, these plants will create sewage treatment capacity of 412 MLD, adequate to meet the sewage treatment demands of the town till 2035," it said.

In addition, the works on interceptor sewers for rivers Varuna and Assi, development of three pumping stations at Chauka ghat, Phulwaria and Saraiya, rehabilitation of old trunk sewers and rehabilitation of ghat pumping stations and existing sewage treatment plants are also underway to improve the entire sewage management infrastructure in Varanasi, the Ministry said.

To clean floating waste in the river, a trash skimmer is operational since April.

"The Central government last year started cleaning of 84 heritage ghats of Varanasi under Namami Gange programme which has shown positive results," it said.

The work for construction of 153 community toilet complexes has been awarded, of which 109 toilets are ready and are being used by 15,000 to 20,000 people every day, it added.

The Ministry said that four dhobi ghats (used by washermen for washing clothes) -- Pandeypur, Nadesar, Bhavania Pokhran and Konia -- have been renovated while the construction of three others at Bazardiha, Machodari Slaughter House and Bhawania Pokhri (extension) is underway.

--IANS

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