National Mission for Clean Ganga Organizes Workshop on Sludge Management and Online Continuous Effluent Monitoring Systems
View sludge as a gold mine for the country: DG, NMCG
G Asok Kumar, Director General, National Mission
for Clean Ganga (NMCG) on 2nd May 2023 presided over workshops on ‘Online Continuous Effluent
Monitoring Systems (OCEMS): Issues, Challenges and Way Forward’ and ‘Sludge
Management: Issues, Challenges and Way Forward’ held at India International
Centre, New Delhi. Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), Ministry of
Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), Ministry of Housing and
Urban Affairs (MoHUA), National River Conservation Directorate (NRCD), state
governments, academic institutions, researchers, international organisations
etc. took part in the workshops. Issues related to ‘Parameters and Feasible
Technologies required to be installed for Online Continuous Effluent Monitoring
System in different categories of STPs/ETPs across the Ganga Basin’ and
‘Characterization and Policy Framework Guidelines on Safe and Efficient Sludge
management’ were discussed.
Delivering the opening remarks for the OCEMS
workshop, G Asok Kumar emphasized the importance of the workshops in terms of
getting reliable and replicable data. “There are projects worth more than Rs.
35000 crore that are going on under Namami Gange, out of which projects worth
more than Rs. 29,000 crore are for sewerage management. These are big
investments and if we don’t know the outcomes then it is not right,” Asok Kumar
said, adding, “The world is looking at us as exemplified with the recognition
of Namami Gange as one of the top 10 world’s restoration flagships to revive
the natural world. A lot of interest was also shown in Namami Gange Programme
during the UN World Water Conference 2023 held in New York in March 2023.”
G Asok Kumar said that
there is a persistent need to outline fair and consistent data to gauge the
outcome of the program. He remarked that the human element amplifies noise and
distorts data, and we are looking to have accurate numbers. He stressed upon
the necessity to have pre-defined parameters that can transmit accurate data
from the source to the servers. “Human intervention can create havoc and noise
when used erroneously”, he said. There are various schools of thoughts with
respect to what needs to be measured and creating nation-wide parameters will
lead to stable and fair information from the source. He said: “Unless something
is monitored, nothing can be done to improve it. If we wish to improve the
water quality, then it has to be monitored. For monitoring, the correct data
has to be measured.”
DG, NMCG called upon
academicians and technical experts to finalize the parameters required to
measure source data and said that these parameters could be revolutionary and
need not to be confined to the Indian standards as long as they are reliable
and repeatable. “There must be some technology available
somewhere ensuring that parameters are measured and transmitted in a reliable
way. The bottom line is that you get any technology from anywhere in the world,
measure whatever parameters you want to but a solution needs to come out that
can bring stable, reliable and replicable data to the computer screen without any
bias, variation or fear and give the real picture on the ground,” he added.
Recently, NMCG inaugurated
PRAYAG – which stands for Platform for Real-time Analysis
of Yamuna, Ganga and their Tributaries at NMCG.
On sludge management, G Asok
Kumar exhorted a narrative change to view sludge as a gold mine for the country. “The treating capacity of
NMCG has increased in the last 7-8 years and it is being ensured that polluted
stretches of the river are being properly addressed,” he said, adding, “This
comes with a new problem of large volumes of sludge and in the last one-and-a
half year or so, Namami Gange Mission has been focusing on various ways to
monetize the reuse of waste water and sludge under the Arth Ganga campaign
including use of sludge as soil conditioner in Natural Farming in the Ganga
Basin.”
NMCG looks to change how
people view sludge. STPs have been renamed as ‘Nirmal Jal Kendras’ to
connect the process of sewage treatment and Ganga Rejuvenation with the local
people and farmers. He said that sludge should be used to generate additional
revenue for the STPs and Local Urban Bodies. He also mentioned the National
Framework for Safe Usage of Treated Water that has been launched by NMCG
recently. “We need to look into using sludge as a soil conditioner without
causing any health effects, how to compress the volume of sludge and de-water
it, pursue farmers to take sludge from us, fortify sludge with additional
minerals and market it as fertilizers or manure”, he added.
DP Mathuria, Executive Director (Technical),
NMCG gave the welcome address and made a presentation reflecting on the
question of reliability of data that comes through various sources. During the
OCEMS workshop, the discussions were held on techniques/ instrumentation for
Online Influent and Effluent Quality Measurement using real time
sensors/analysers, available technologies and suitability of technologies for
different matrices of water quality, site selection/conditions, comparison of
online/in-line sensors/analysers v/s Lab Analysis - sensor and analyser
accuracy and allowed variability, validation, calibration frequency, comparison
of BOD, COD, TSS, TOC sensors/analysers, reporting methods and data
transmission and commercial viability analysis for various available
technologies.