Construction of first SME - DEWATS plant by Umred Municipal Council and CDD Regional Office Nagpur for slaughter house, fish market and public toilets in Umred, Maharashtra

The CDD Regional Cooperation Office (RCO), Nagpur, supported the initiation of construction of the first SME–DEWATS plant for a slaughter house, fish market and the public toilet complex in Umred, a small township in Maharashtra. The request was received from the Umred Municipal Council (UMC) in August 2011.

In December 2011, an agreement was signed between UMC, the urban civic body responsible for providing basic need services to people at town level and CDD Society Bangalore, for the implementation of the DEWATS project in the slaughter house. The slaughter house building was constructed 2 years ago by UMC. Construction of the new fish market is also in progress. Presently, all wastewater generated from the saughter house is disposed off into the lake behind it, which is of grave environmental concern to UMC. To initiate the construction work of a DEWATS treatment system, the technical sanction was accorded by the Maharashtra Jiwan Pradhikaran (MJP) and administrative approval was accorded by District Collector, Nagpur. The contractor was appointed by UMC for construction of DEWATS. CDD Regional Office Nagpur was appointed as the Project Monitoring consultant for providing technical support and guidance. The Project is financed by UMC.

The present operations of the slaughter house are as follows: 8 to 10 goats are slaughtered daily. Besides this, chicken are also slaughtered here. At the fish market about 500 Kg of fish are slaughtered daily. The present disposal of waste and waste water from these sources into the lake is causing a great environmental concern to UMC. Hence, implementation of Decentralize Wastewater Treatment System (DEWATS) to treat the wastewater emerging from the Slaughter House and Fish Market was decided on as a solution. The treated wastewater will be reused for gardening and excess water disposed into the lake.

The DEWATS plant is designed to handle 22 cubic meters per day (22,000 litres). The wastewater will be collected from the slaughter house, fish market and the 20 seater toilet complex. The plant constitutes 5 modules: a biogas settler (for the slaughter house), settler (for the public toilet), anaerobic baffled reactor integrated with anaerobic filter and planted gravel filter. Construction of DEWATS at the slaughter house started on 3rd January 2012. The layout was provided by RCO’s engineers and excavation started the same day. The excavation and soling and compaction for the biogas unit, baffle reactor and anaerobic filter have been completed. PCC and raft have been laid for the biogas settler and baffle reactor. The date for completion of the plant is 30th April 2012. M/s Bhave Construction has been contracted the construction work of the DEWATS plant. Technical supervision, guidance and monitoring for construction of DEWATS plant is done by CDD RCO Nagpur. The operation and maintenance of the plant will be done by UMC.

Strategically, construction of the first DEWATS plant in this Region of Maharashtra will serve as a demo model for CDD RCO Nagpur to disseminate DEWATS options to ULBs for treatment of slaughter house effluents in small towns.

The initiative taken by UMC is a step forward in reducing an environmental pollution and saving water bodies from pollution.