Oversight Committee report on disposal of untreated sewage into Sai river, Pratapgarh, Uttar Pradesh, 01/06/2021
Updated report of Oversight Committee in compliance of National Green Tribunal order passed in Original Application No. 490 of 2019 in Re: T. S. Singh Vs State of Uttar Pradesh with regard to prevention of discharge of untreated sewage into Sai river at Pratapgarh in Uttar Pradesh.
No progress has been made by the Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam in providing clean water to the people and the water sources are contaminated because the STP " has not come into operation for the last 11 years," the committee report said. Even after the NGT order, January 2, 2020, the Uttar Pradesh government has neither included it in the budget proposal nor sent the proposal to National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) so far. No progress had been made in adopting phyto-remediation as an in situ measure till the STP gets operational. The committee questioned as to why no future enhancement of amount in the total generation of the sewage was not taken into consideration while designing the STP - as the total sewage generation in the city of Pratapgarh is 8.95 MLD and the capacity of the proposed STP is also 8.95 MLD.
The Oversight Committee report under the chairmanship of Justice S V S Rathore recommended imposition of environmental compensation on Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam for the lack of a functional STP, due to which polluted drains were being dumped into the river Sai.