JALANDHAR and Chandigarh have emerged as the two bright spots for Punjab after making to the top 50 of the 476 cities surveyed for cleanliness. Chandigarh has garnered the 21st rank and is followed closely by Jalandhar, which has been ranked 28th.

While Jalandhar continues to struggle with open garbage dumps, choked sewer lines and poor roads, what may have worked in the city’s favour are a number of sewerage treatment plants (STPs) that have come up in the recent years.

Chief among them is the 50 Million Litre Discharge (MLD) Kala Sanghian Drain STP worth Rs 2,200 crore, which was dedicated to the public on World Environment Say (June 5) this year. Though the initial capacity of the plant was 25 MLD, it was increased to 50 MLD to better treat effluent discharged into the drain. While the STP is yet to run at full capacity, it has provided huge relief to the city and the neighbouring areas. Before the plant was in place, untreated sewer water released into the Kala Sanghia drain resulted in toxic waste affecting around 150 villages along its channel.

The other major sewerage treatment plant is at the Pholriwal area of Jalandhar. Another 6 STPs cater to the leather tanneries in the city (there are about 50 tanneries unit), preventing them from releasing highly toxin tannery waste into the city’s drainage systems.

While a proposed solid waste management plant is yet to see the day of light, the Jalandhar Municipal Corporation has engaged a private firm to ensure door-to-door collection of garbage in some wards.

The firm, Jindal and Company is to set up the solid waste plant and generate power from it, but at the moment is only collecting waste from hotels, schools and restaurant. The city municipal corporation is also installing ‘closed collection centres’ for garbage by installing view-cutters at garbage dumps to hide the dirt. Jalandhar has also got rid of its cattle with 99 per cent of the animals having been shifted to the Jamsher dairy plant, some 15 kilometres from the city.
“We are happy that Jalandhar has attained the 28th place but I personally feel that a lot is to be done for the city to be completely clean. We first need to manage the 500 tonnes of garbage the city generates every day. Our current garbage disposal point at Variana village is horrible and it can be managed only when the solid waste plant at Jamsher is functional,” Mayor Sunil Jyoti said.

The ranking, however, shouldn’t mask the fact that Jalandhar still has a lot of work to do on its sewerage system. Around 40 per cent of the city is yet to be linked to the main drainage network. Most of the sewer lines are around 25 years old, way past their expiry limits of 12-15 years. As they begin to degenerate and leak, water samples collected by the Health Department routinely fail contamination tests. “The present sewerage line is around 1150-km long and the water supply line is 1,050-km long. Both lines lie close to each other in many areas, thus increasing the risk of contamination,” said a source in the Jalandhar MC.
Around three dozen localities of the city are at high risk. Outbreak of gastroenteritis has become a routine affair due to mixing of sewerage line waste with fresh water.