UP Sludge Management Systems - CSE Study

What is the issue?

The Centre for Science and Environment recently released a report on its analysis of sludge management systems in 30 cities in Uttar Pradesh.

What are the highlights?

• Waterbodies - Urban Uttar Pradesh has an 80% coverage of toilets, but inefficient sanitation systems.
• So almost 87% of faecal sludge expelled from toilets in urban areas is untreated.
• This, in turn, is being dumped in waterbodies or agricultural lands.
• It is eventually leading to polluting the Ganga and other rivers.
• Systems - The number of toilets and onsite sanitation systems being built in the state are all set to increase exponentially.
• But the effluent from the septic tank, along with greywater from other uses flows out into stormwater drains and open drains.
• If not managed scientifically and sustainably, the amount of faecal sludge that new toilets will generate will swamp the State.
• It will only worsen the environmental, sanitation and manual scavenging situation.

• Manual scavengers - The faecal sludge has to be periodically emptied from the septic tank, either manually or mechanically.
• But half of all emptying work in the studied cities is done manually.
• This is despite the legal prohibition of the employment of manual scavengers.

What are the other drawbacks?

• State support for improved housing and planned development has never been strong.
• The National Urban Sanitation Policy of 2008 has not changed this condition significantly.
• At the national scale, a UN report of 2015 estimates that 65,000 tonnes of untreated faeces is introduced into the environment in India annually.
• The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan promised a major shift, but the focus is more on the basic requirement of household and community toilets in rural and urban areas.
• So the problem of waste not being contained, collected without manual labour, transported and treated safely remains.

What lies ahead?

• India aims to achieve clean water and sanitation for all, under the UN Sustainable Development Agenda, by 2030.
• Given this, decentralised sludge management systems are vital to achieve the clean water goals.

• Investments at this end would improve the environment and reduce the disease burden with insanitary conditions.
• The strategy for the Ganga relies on large sewage treatment plants for riverside cities and towns.
• The CSE study is being followed up with a mapping exercise on the flow of faecal waste streams in individual cities, which is welcome.
• One immediate intervention needed is the creation of an inter-departmental task force.
• This has to identify land to build small treatment systems for sludge.
• It should also provide easily accessible solutions to houses that are currently discharging waste into open drains.
• The business of emptying faecal material using tanker trucks needs to be professionalised and de-stigmatised.
• Caste factors still play out in the recruitment of workers even in the mechanised operations. (Click here to know more)
• So all aspects of the business of sanitation need reforms in India.

Source: The Hindu