Kerala: Integrate Sewage Treatment Plant with rules, say builders

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The builder’s fraternity has appealed to the state government to amend building rules and include Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs) as a mandatory requirement for every apartment project. Presently, the city Corporation demands that builders obtain ‘consent to operate’ certificate from the Pollution Control Board (PCB) before providing the occupancy certificate. However, with the lack of clarity in rules, specification, capacity and the location of STPs, the project gets delayed by the PCB and the Corporation.

With various government officials interpreting STP projects in a different manner, builders pay a bribe to bypass delays leading to corruption. “We builders want the STPs in our apartments as it always adds green value to projects. Often apartments are considered as monsters that pollute the environment and buyers do consider factors like STP,” said N Reghuchandran Nair, Vice President of CREDAI.

Presently, apartment projects are one of the biggest income sources for the PCB. In the pollution index, apartments are listed in the orange category, the second highest behind heavy polluting industries. “The central government had recently made it clear that the environment clearance for buildings above 1.5 lakh sq ft be embedded in the building rules. States have been asked to take steps to do this,” he said.

Disputes are plenty between the City Corporation and realtors as the builders need to prove the efficiency of STPs before being given the occupancy certificates.  “Without occupants, how can we operate STPs and obtain consent to operate certificate? Also, there are different types of STPs and the officials have to specify what we need to install,” said an eminent builder. Also, the City Corporation insists on a particular distance between STPs and the nearest residential plot like in the case of septic tanks. “The same yardstick cannot be applied to both. Space is scarce in the city. We also need to provide parking space underground,” the builder added.

In recent meetings with the PCB, builders demanded that the treated water from STPs should be allowed inside the stormwater drain. “Our treated water is 10ppm compared to the drain water which has over 800ppm,” said a builder. As per a Corporation official, they presently insist on ‘consent to operate’ certificate as apartments in areas such as Akkulam pollute tremendously despite flaunting STPs while getting permits. “Once the apartments are sold off, we can’t fix liability on the builder for such violations,” an official said.  The official added that LSGs were coming up with a new amendment in building rules adding STPs to it.

Muttathara still underfed

While Sewage Treatment Plants (STP) were being insisted in residential complexes, city’s 107 MLD sewage treatment plant at Muttathara remains underfed by the existing sewage pipes and processes only around 35 MLD.  Ironically, even if KWA agrees to add an apartment into their network and make use of the treatment facility, a PCB permit will be demanded by corporation.
KWA officials said that new connections were being provided only in areas with already existing pipelines.  “New wards have not been added into the project. We hope to lay new pipelines under AMRUT scheme,” said a senior official.

In a city of around 10 lakh people, individual bungalows still form majority of construction. The KWA was able to give only around 75,000 sewage connections. As a result, most of the sewage from 70 per cent areas in the city are entering natural water sources and polluting ground water.The KWA was to first lay pipelines at areas around STP at Muttathara and Vallakkadavu and later extent them westwards.

However, still most of these areas have no pipelines and people organise protest from time to time. The 100 wards in city had to be divided into 18 different blocks and given sewage connection. However, in past few decades only five blocks could be realised and added to sewerage network.