Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s visit to the toilet-to-tap sewage treatment plant in Keshopur on Wednesday encouraged MLAs to envision similar projects in their constituencies.
Kejriwal on Thursday inaugurated the plant, which treats raw sewage by a multple filtration process to convert it into potable water.
“Neighbouring states will stop giving us water in the coming few years as they need to meet the requirement of their citizens. Waste water reuse and management becomes very important in such a case. Only about 50% of the city has sewer connections. If we plan to expand the network with the current plans, we will need years and around Rs 30,000 crore. The solution is to starts smaller plants like this one. These can be built using development charges,” he said.
Dwarka MLA Adarsh Shastri, Shalimar Bagh MLA Bandana Kumari and Tilak Nagar Jarnail Singh were present at the inauguration and expressed interest in starting similar projects in their constituencies.
The plant set up at Keshopur cost Rs 55 lakh and filters around 5,000 litres of sewage every hour to give an output of 4000 litres per hour.
“If this project is up-scaled in a decentralised manner, every home will get sewer and water connections in the next three to four years,” Kejriwal said.
The Delhi Jal Board is now planning to use this water in the Delhi secretariat.
“The chief minister drinking this water has sent out a strong message. We will start offering this treated water to people at the secretariat. An awareness campaign will be started to educate people,” said Kapil Mishra, water minister.
Calling the pilot project a jump in terms of the way a city thinks about water, DJB CEO SS Yadav said that feasibility of setting up more such projects was being explored.
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