Cities dump 78 per cent untreated sewage into rivers: CSE

Around 78 per cent of sewage remains untreated and is disposed of in rivers and lakes, a green body today said and urged the government to come out with a plan to connect water conservation to sewage management.
"Even as cities plan for water supply sourced from locations that are far, they forget about managing the waste - the excreta and sludge that is generated. Most cities have no clue how they will convey the waste or treat it.
"In fact, a humongous 78 per cent of the sewage generated remains untreated and is disposed of in rivers, groundwater or lakes," said Sunita Narain, director general of Centre for Science and Environment.

The CSE organised a workshop 'Mainstreaming Citywide Sanitation: Opportunities and Challenges in Excreta Management' here during the ongoing India Water Week.
Narain said because water was sourced from far away, as in the case of Delhi, it has led to an increase in the cost of supply as well as high distribution losses.
"The farther is the source, the more are distribution losses and the less water there is at the end of the pipeline. Due to the high cost incurred in water supply, cities were not able to recover costs of supply and had, therefore, no money to invest in sewage treatment," she said.

She said 80 per cent of water leaves homes as sewage and since cities do not have any accounts of the sewage they generate, they cannot plan and do not have the capacity to treat all the sewage they generate.

"The gravest implication was for the rivers where the faceal sludge was dumped. We are a generation of lost rivers. How many will we lose before we remember that unless sewage is managed, the river-cleaning operations will not work," she said.
CSE also gave a host of recommendations which included plans to deliberately cut costs of water supply, investing in local water systems, reducing water demand, plans to recycle and reuse every drop and connect water conservation to sewage management.

It said that its Down to Earth (DTE) study has put the number of faecal waste being generated in India at 1.7 million tonnes a day which was a "staggering volume".