‘Take steps to stop effluent overflow’

AURANGABAD: The Maharashtra pollution Control Board (MPCB) on Friday asked the MIDC to take corrective measures to stop overflow of effluents at a place in the Waluj industrial area.D B Patil, MIDC's regional officer, said the board received reports from Atra Pharmaceuticals in Waluj MIDC that sump-3 located near company was overflowing, which, in turn led to the effluent getting discharged in the nearby nullah. The officials of the pollution watchdog and MIDC, along with the representatives of the company, rushed to spot and conducted an inspection.Considering the need to combat environmental damage, the MPCB has written a letter to the MIDC to address the issue immediately."We found that the effluent released from the nearby industries was overflowing from sump-3 of the common effluent treatment plant (CETP) and was further entering the natural nullah. As the untreated effluent was polluting underground water, the board has directed MIDC's executive engineer for taking corrective steps to stop overflow of effluent from sump-3 immediately and also sent the action taken report to the MPCB for further compliance," said Anand Katole, sub-regional officer of the MPCB.The MIDC has laid a 32-km pipeline in Waluj which connects with the CETP. It constructed four effluent collection sumps (S1, S2, S3, S4) and one intermediate sump. The effluent is collected in S1, S2, S3, S4 and later pumped to the treatment plant."Three pumps have been fitted to three sumps, while two pumps have been fixed at one sump. But over the past few months, the capacity of the pumps has reduced as the industries do not release the effluent as per norms, which reduces the efficiency of the pumps," said N R Asalkar, deputy engineer in the MIDC."Hence, the MIDC has decided to replace all 14 pumps with the ones having three times higher capacity. The new pumps would have capacity to pump about 8 MLD effluent to the CETP. Now, the pumps will have to function round-the-clock to pump the effluent released by the industries in the sumps," he said.Asalkar said it would take at least six months to replace the old pumps. "Till then, we have requested the industries to release effluent in intervals to avoid load on the pumps," he added.