Large housing societies will soon have big brother watching their waste. The Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) will launch real-time monitoring of sewage treatment plants through its Continuous Emissions Monitoring System (CEMS) and use the data to set benchmarks. Officials said this will lead to compliances by housing societies that do not have operational common Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs), and also ensure transparency and accountability.
Projects of an over 20,000 sqmt are given environment clearances on the condition that solid waste is processed at premises. MPCB member secretary Dr P Anbalagan said the system would apply to societies with over 2 lakh sqft built-up area.
Premises which default or fail to meet standards will be served notices, have their water supply reduced and prosecution will be initiated against their office-bearers.
"We are developing an interface software," said Anbalagan. "The STPs test water and generate one result every 15 minutes, which translates into four results every hour and 96 results every day." These results will be sent to the MPCB's server for real-time monitoring.
He added that if the units are non-functional, or if the results exceed the benchmarks or if the plants are re-calibrated, SMS alerts will be sent to these entities on their registered mobile numbers. "This will also create a permanent data base," he said.
"We have asked these large housing societies to compulsorily treat sewage by establishing STPs. These will be monitored online through the CEMS," explained a senior MPCB official.
He noted that their staff could not visit all societies for surveillance, this online monitoring will help ensure that ETPs are operational and confirming to set parameters.
"The condition for linking the CEMS to the STPs is imposed while granting consents to the housing societies," the official said. Around 3,000 housing societies in Maharashtra, largely in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) and also in Pune, Nashik and Nagpur are eligible for the system.
