Bengaluru: After city’s polluted lakes and vanishing water bodies caught the attention of national media, Karnataka State Pollution Control Board in 2007 came up with Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) policy, much to the disagreement of experts and apartment dwellers.
Terming it a good move, the experts, however, believe that the KSPCB had formulated the order to save itself the trouble of monitoring the apartments. They have instead come out with a policy calling for stoppage of the discharge of even treated water.
“More than 50 per cent of the household chores require fresh water and the use of the rest for gardening is not viable during monsoons. Many apartments find it difficult to meet the 100 per cent reuse target,” said Dr Shrachchandra Lele, a researcher at Ashoka Trust for Research and Ecology and the Environment.
The researcher alludes that the gardening area in an apartment complex with over 800 residents is very small and the installation of dual piping will only take care of the 20 per cent of the water which is consumed in flushing. The rest 80 per cent needs to be taken care of so the only option left is car washing and gardening, which do not need to be watered during monsoon period, which spans close to three months.
Ram Prasad of Friends of Lake has termed the zero discharge policy as flawed, which needs to be amended or corrected, as it is practically impossible for the apartments to follow this.
Nagesh Aras, an environmentalist believes that the BWSSB needs to change its attitude. “Over 55%-65% of the treated waste water from the apartments should be discarded. It should ideally be discarded to the wetlands since Nitrates and Phosphates are best for the plants, but the wetlands are encroached by the residential complexes.”
Aras further stressed that plan must be drawn on how to treat the raw waste dumped by nearly 70 lakh people near the lake.
Going by the arguments presented by the experts, it seems that something the civic authorities have to chalk out plan or else the ramifications would be horrific.
