Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh inaugurated eco-friendly sewage water treatment plant in the Water Technology Centre of IARI here today. Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Processing Industries, Dr Sanjeev Kumar Balyan, Director General ICAR, Shri S. Ayyappan and Director IARI, Dr H S Gupta were also present.The Water Technology Centre (WTC) of IARI, which is engaged primarily in efficient use of water resources in agriculture, has developed an eco-friendly sewage water treatment plant in the IARI Delhi premises. The facility is spread over 1.42 hectares and is capable of treating 2.2 million liters of sewage per day from the Krishi Kunj Colony, at a cost of approx. Rs 1.2 crore and with a potential to irrigate 330 acres of IARI farmland. The eco-friendly sewage treatment plant (e-STP) has 3-treatment cells (of 80 meter by 40 meter dimension each) and ensures complete gravity flow of the wastewater from the sewage wells to the treated water containing cell of the system.
The noteworthy feature of this facility is that the environmental stress is 33 times lesser than that of a conventional sewage treatment plant (STP) and output i.e. treated water is associated with significantly lower turbidity, BOD, Nitrate, Phosphate, Lead, Iron, Nickel and Sulphate. Compared to the conventional wastewater treatment systems, the IARI`s wastewater treatment technology requires just 1% energy; zero-chemical application; zero-sludge generation; 50-65% reduced treatment cost and no skilled manpower requirement. To top it all, it has an integrated business model by utilizing system biomass harvested from wetland, which can be transformed to particle board thereby making the complete model self-sustainable. It is, therefore, aptly called "Cash from Trash" business model.