Kochi to soon have one more faecal sludge treatment plant

Environmental and health hazards caused by the dumping of septage in open drains and waterbodies will soon be reduced with the setting up of a faecal sludge treatment plant (FSTP) at Brahmapuram.

The State-level technical committee for the second phase of Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (Amrut) projects had recently cleared a proposal for setting up an FSTP of installed capacity of one million litres a day on the Brahmapuram campus of the Kochi Corporation. The project cost is estimated at around ₹30 crore. The authorities have plans to enhance the capacity to two million litres a day.

The 2-MLD treatment plant can treat septage from eight lakh households, according to the preliminary project report of the Integrated Rural Technology Centre, Palakkad, which is the implementation agency for the Kochi Corporation.

The setting up of the FSTP will result in checking the illegal discharge of septage, sewage, and wastewater. Once the unit starts functioning, only licensed trucks with GPS tracking mechanism will be allowed to operate. Multiple discharge points for septage trucks will be provided and a traffic management system with separate entry and exit for septage trucks will be introduced at the fully automated plant, according to the project report.

Industrial effluent shall not be collected and sent to the proposed plant, says the report.

Currently, domestic liquid waste in Kochi urban agglomerate is managed through on-site sanitation systems such as septic tanks or decentralised sewage treatment plants in residential and commercial units. At present, there are only two FSTPs of 0.1 MLD each at Willingdon Island and Brahmapuram, which are highly inadequate to meet the demand. The existing FSTPs are designed to manage only the faecal sludge de-sludged from septic tanks.

However, there is no treatment mechanism for the wastewater collected by the septage trucks from restaurants, hotels and labour camps. The proposed FSTPs will be equipped to treat wastewater received in septage trucks. The de-sludged septic tank wastewater and the wastewater from various other identified sources, excluding industrial and chemical effluents, can be treated at the plant. A detailed project report would be prepared for the FSTP shortly, said civic officials.