Ganga and Kanpur chapter of Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam

राकेश मिश्र कानपुर

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1. A.      Background:

Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam (Jalboard) is a key agency engaged in capitol works of water resource management in Uttar Pradesh. This is a state owned agency which has centralized the power to look after the infrastructure development in rural and urban regions of the state. Its working methodology includes coordination of various central government departments and local bodies of the state. It is seen that for urban of the infrastructure development projects, Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam  assigns operation – maintenance and public relation management cum revenue collection part to the Urban Local Bodies.

The department has a special wing working on Ganga Pollution Control. It is said as Ganga Pollution control Unit of Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam.

1. 1.       The previous work of UPJN:

Multiple projects have been executed under GAP-I, JNNURM and other central schemes some of them are as following:

1. Six cities of UP selected under GAP-I. Within Kanpur Nagar Nigam 69 KM of sewage lines installed and renovation of the old lines done with an objective of urban infrastructure development. Sufficient treatment capacity installed under the same scheme.
2. Within another scheme 130 KM sewer lines installed with 42 MLD sewage treatment plant under construction in Saniganawan near Chakeri in Zone-2.
3.  Sufficient waterlines and water supply infrastructure installed under the same umbrella organization of the state. (Detailed in CSE Report)

2.       Key Challenges for Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam:

a. Inadequate infrastructure: It is a very common pattern of answers by the bureaucrats but it becomes very serious in environment as well as water resource management. Water resource management does not seem to be a priority agenda of the state. It can be concluded as following facts:

1. i.   Heavy power cut (5-6 hours) in the sewage pumping stations causes to inadequate sewage supply to the STPs, still the STPs have sufficient privileges for round the clock power.
2. ii. Insufficient capacity of sewage treatment is also a key issue.

b. Lack of multi party coordination and public feedback framework: The government departments may have very good coordination but when the civil society and community response is counted there is very limited space for multi party and public interaction framework at the planning and authorization of state or the centre. Some activists observe this condition as a serious disconnection of different stakeholders of the issue.

c.       Public acceptability: Limited space for multi stakeholder framework and civil society creates challenges of public acceptability. It is observed that GAP-I is regarded as failed initiative by various groups as it had very limited scope for communities which didn’t delivered sufficient level of public acceptance. Post implementation conflicts also have been observed in the decade of nineties. Some sociologists claim that the modern means of Ganga related challenges (Germ theory, fecal matters, and notion of ecological disaster) and pollution control have western definitions and patents. It should be rechecked to meet local mass with heritage and spiritual measures (or can be related to social psychology). As many authorities have been found correlating Thames river basin management with Ganga basin, still leaves no space to evaluate the comparative behavior patterns of the stakeholders of the two different events.

d.       Tanneries: In the light of findings and proposal by Central Leather Research Institute the installed treatment capacity has supposed to be increased from 9 MLD to 50 MLD. A multiple contributor’s framework has been advised. The department senior officials state its proportion as 50:25:25 where 50% by central government, 25% by state and the rest 25% by the polluters. It became a bone of contention among the tanners and the government agency. Multiple dialogues resulted unsuccessful. It is heard that tanners have consulted with IL&FS for a level of project assessment. The equation between the tanners and the private organization is still to be explored.

i. An incident of Banthra near Lucknow: A tannery owners owned and operated (officials state it similar to community owned community operated kind) treatment plant was installed for treatment of their specific waste. It was proved underperformed as the people paid very less attention on its operations and maintenance.

ii. Revision of the treatment rates of hide and salt used: Again it is a controversial matter when the state is willing to review the present rate of Rs. 3.81 per hide to some comfortable price but tanners have very strong resistance on the price hike. A multiparty consultation may create some positive differences.   Per hide rates are much higher in other stats (It is said by senior officials that hide rates in Chennai are near about Rs. 40 per hide)

e.  Limited scope for local bodies: Local bodies have very limited scope in the present institutional power structure pattern. Centralization of the decision making may be temptation of the state top authorities. In many states empowering local bodies has been observed to be more effective tool to local governance. But again inadequate capacity of local bodies has to be compensated by technical excellence centre or other appropriate actions.

f.        Status of parallel drainage proposed by KNN: There was a very unrealistic proposal created by Retd. Engineer R.P. Shukla for Kanpur Nagar Nigam, which concluded for drainage parallel to the River Ganga. Before formal tendering process, the DPR was offered for a comment by Ganga Pollution Control Unit Jal Nigam. Senior most officials found it unrealistic on the basis of core technical grounds. Still request for proposal appeared in leading print media. It creates a funny situation as this preposition was made public in the presence of senior most activists and prominent public groups and they supported for the idea. The overall activity clear view of the insufficient technical competence of Kanpur Nagar Nigam.

g. Tertiary treatment: It is seen that the most prominent authorities engaged into Ganga River pollution control and policy makinghave a common agreement on the need of the tertiary treatment. Still they can visualize the limitations into inadequate resources and cost estimations.