HINDUSTAN ZINC'S FIRST `SEWAGE TREATMENT PLANT’ IN UDAIPUR

This Rs. 170 crore project to address domestic sewage problem of Udaipur, generating manure, cleaning lakes

Udaipur, a city of lakes, elevated hills and magnificent cultural heritage with exotic palaces, celestial temples, colorful festivals and express highways is no doubt one of the most sought after national and global tourism destination. Thousands of tourists visit Udaipur every year.

With the time, in the last few years, the local population of Udaipur has also grown. The advent of shopping malls and multiplexes have been instrumental in building a new and modern Udaipur. As the city has grown, the maintenance of current infrastructure has also become a challenge, particularly in relation to cleanliness of majestic lakes. The challenge is to sustain the freshness. For long, the lakes have been absorbing the disposal of human waste which has become critical as the contamination is now clearly visible on the surface.

Hindustan Zinc, a company of Vedanta Group in Zinc-Lead-Silver business has come forward to build the first domestic 'Sewage Treatment Plant (STP)' at Udaipur. This Rs. 170 crore project is being constructed on ‘Design Build Own Operate and Transfer’ basis in association with Government of Rajasthan. The capacity of this Sewage Treatment Plant it to treat 20 million litres per day (MLD) and it shall be treating only the domestic sewage.

Government of Rajasthan has been looking for this project for quite some time and there always has been a dire need for a large corporate to align and associate with the Government to address growing sewage problem in Udaipur. Hindustan Zinc being one of the largest corporate in Rajasthan and leader in undertaking environment friendly projects has signed an agreement to complete the project in 3 years. 

On an average, Udaipur city generates about 70 million litres of sewage per day and cleaning this sewage was itself a challenge. Currently, most of the sewage is travelling to various lakes leading to contamination of water, polluting lakes and thereby affecting overall beauty of these lakes. The only solution that was evident was constructing a large scale Sewage Treatment Plant that could take the load of treating this massive sewage. This treatment of sewage would not only keep the lakes clean, a strong move towards clean environment, but would also help in retaining the majestic looks of these lakes that attract thousands of tourists every year.

Not just treating sewage, this Sewage Treatment Plant, in the process, would also be generating a large quantity of manure that will be sold by Udaipur Municipal Corporation to the local bodies. This initiative itself is estimated to generate revenue of Rs. 1 crore every year. To ensure there is no piling-up of stocks of manure, the Udaipur Municipal Corporation will be disposing off the manure on fortnightly basis.

Hindustan Zinc, adhering to its commitment towards clean green environment and maintaining highest standards of waste management, is expected to make the Sewage Treatment Plant operative by 2014. The project is also aimed to divert domestic sewage pipeline into large pipe-lines, also being build by Hindustan Zinc, leading to the Sewage Treatment Plant, to reduce the flow of sewage in the lakes. 

Hindustan Zinc is one of the pioneers in adopting clean green technology in running its plants.  Saving water has always been a focus area for Hindustan Zinc. While maintaining the global benchmark and working continuously towards water conservation, the company has been successfully reducing its water footprints by reducing the water consumption every year. All the business locations of Hindustan Zinc are working on zero discharge principle, while putting on efforts and research for gainful utilization of waste generated by them.

This Sewage Treatment Plant project is a major step not only towards treatment of sewage in Udaipur but also a significant initiative towards building a sustainable environment and conservation of water.