The Greater Noida authority has imposed a penalty of ₹30 lakh on six developers who were found dumping untreated waste water into the storm water drains, officials aware of the matter said on Sunday.
The developers are required to set up a sewer treatment plant (STP) to treat the sewer before dumping it into the sewer line instead of drains, which are connected with the Hindon river. Flouting of the rule attracts penalty, officials added.
As per the Uttar Pradesh government’s 2020 directive, if each housing complex discharges at least 10,000 kilo litre sewer daily, then the premise mandatorily needs to set up the STP to treat the sewer and recycle it for irrigation purposes. Also, if the sewer generation is less than 10KLD but the size of the housing complex is 20,000 square metre or more, then the owner needs to set up an STP for recycling of waste water.
“As per the rules, each housing complex needs to set up an STP, and then stop dumping sewage into the drains as it causes damage to ecology. We have started issuing notices to all the developers in the city for violating rules and dumping sewage without treating it at their STP,” said Ashutosh Kumar Dwivedi, additional chief executive officer of the Greater Noida authority heading the water and sewer department.
The authority has imposed ₹5 lakh penalty each on the six developers who have housing projects in sectors 1 and 2 of Greater Noida. “Our drive against the developers will continue until we resolve this issue,” said Dwivedi.
Meanwhile, the developers said that they do not either have space in societies that have already been built or the authority is yet to provide them with sewer connection. As a result, they are forced to dump waste into drains.
“The authority gave us in writing that it will give us sewer connection as we did not have space in our complex. We were not bound to set up an STP to treat 50 per cent of society waste water and recycle it for the irrigation. And now they have imposed the penalty even when they are yet to lay down the sewer line and provide the connection to each realtor,” said Ravi Mohan Sethi, promoter Steller Jeevan society in Greater Noida.