Cleaning up of Yamuna, Ganga, all river sytems in India

I refer to today's news item in the Times of India, Delhi edition on Yamuna Action Plan and the review done by TERI and advice to the Central Government and Government of NCT. It is possible to treat the entire sewage, sullage of Delhi as well as toxic industrial effluents with a new technology developed in India by Swami Valmiki Sreenivasa Ayyangarya .It uses very little energy, does not involve aeration. The sewage can be treated in simple few stages in normal tanks or ponds and the sludge which settles down will be inactive and after extraction using say a belt filter, can be used as bio fertilizer.The water can be purified upto drinking water quality or used as grey water for flushing Yamuna or recharging ground water or irrigating parks and gardens in Delhi NCT or for peri urban agriculture. This technology does not require validation and will work with exact precision performance as desired.However we value empirical studies and understand that confidence building on the client's part is a necessity, especially since in general, the academic circles in India or in developed countries are ignorant.of the existence of this science and its applied technologies and so we suggest pilot stage studies.The technology itself is based on Vedic sciences of which there are plenty of literature, considered more of a myth since they are mostly in Sanskrit. The science is of BC times vintage. It is suggested that we collaborate on a PPP model, starting with Yamuna and then Ganges cleaning and rejuvenation.Ultimately all river sytems and water bodies can be cleaned. Similarly the huge amounts of Municipal Solid Wastes (10,000 Metric Tonnes per day?) can be treated in segregated or unsegregated form and used for agriculture. Animal carcass, human bodies can be liquefied into bio fertilizer. This is better than incineration or burial. If social acceptance is ensured for this eco freindly method, it will be a huge step forward for India. Swami Valmiki holds the key for solving two problems at one stroke: Making India's agriculture sustainable and cleaning up pollution from industry and human settlements along the river basins.He has already commercialised his technology with large scale applications in NE Tea estates, coffee estates in Karnataka, water bodies in Karnataka and Maharashtra.He can use pollution as a resource for agriculture, through the enabling technologies developed by him. Blog sites : http://www.linkedin.com/in/santhanamr http://agropedia.iitk.ac.in/content/keshav-krishi-alternative-sustainable-agriculture http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Santhanam_R http://www.wesnetindia.org/fileadmin/newsletter_pdf/Aug06/Waste_Management.pdf http://www.voy.com/61461/2/833.html

3 Comments

1. People in India and world at large, are very intelligent. They can suggest very easy cure for everything, what ever it may be. I wish to compare it with a ill health person. The doctor first ask for blood test reports and other reports and then suggests medicines. Why Ganga or Yamuna or any other river is polluted? what is the scale of pollution? Why it is polluted ? whether the causes can be removed ? Yamuna at Okhla barrage i highly polluted. One of the reasons of pollution of rivers in India is disposing the Pooja articles - idols in rivers - water bodies. The religious persons like Shankracharya should find a suitable solution of this problem. Other reasons are the greediness of rich and influential people of society, which are making the water bodies highly polluted. Other main reason is the continuous reduction of availability of water in water streams to take away the polluted articles. Our prime minister Mr Modi should come foirward and give a high priority for cleaning of rivers of India, otherwise I am sure the ministers and bureaucrats know how to pass on the bug without doing anything. Prevention is more effective than cure. In year 1965 , i went to Calcutta and then Hugli ( Ganga) to take a holy dip. But i could see human excreta flowing in river. I preferred to take bath from a water tape near the bank of river.

2. I had visited the site at Karnataka last year in April.It is a temple pond which had experienced algal bloom.This was arrested. Now the sludge at the bottom is there and the water has plenty of fish and a king fisher was quite busy!I gathered water at the top by skimming with a white paper cup. The water was crystal clear and quite refreshing and sweet to taste.In the several days and nights I spent there and one more night at a coffee estate in in the Kodagu (Coorg) hills, where the pond in the estate was also treated, there was absence of mosquitoes.The temple is located at Halekiranguru, Srirangapattana district a few hours by road and rail from Bengaluru. The ecological indicators and taste of sweet water are the observational proof. The sludge is inactive and the pond which has about 500,000 litres of water capacity, can be desilted, but obviously is not posing any sanitation/health hazard.However the temple has a well and water is drawn from that to the washroom and toilets and for cooking needs.Since the area is close to Talaikaveri in Mandya district where Cauvery originates, the water table is high.The temple is of Shri Anandalvar who had established Tirupathi Temple thousands of years ago.That is also the place of his original domicile in his life time.When the temple pond was dug up, the civic PWD authorities tried to dissuade the devout Vaishnavaites saying that such open ponds create and add to the mosquito menace! The water body at Maharashtra is a very big lake located in Keshavpuri, Yavtamal district, Maharashtra. This place is close to Gandhigram railway station and about 100 kms from Nagpur.The last leg is not traversible and one has to walk. I have not visited the place. Swami Valmiki has shown bench scale demos of treatment of highly toxic 3rd stage spent wash (after methanatiom) from distilleries in Maharashtra, a chemical factory of BASF located at Mangalore and more recently an industry located in Andhra Pradesh.I have spoken to persons who had done these studies. Due to extraneous problems, they were not implimented. In 2009 Karnataka Government, Department of Agriculture had released a document of his work in Kannada language. A scan copy is available of this and also of the pet bottles in which small quantities of industrial effluents were treated and shown at different stages.

3. Dear Sir, The new technology developed for the clean up of polluted water sounds exciting. Is there a way to get more information about its direct application in the Maharastra or Karnatake? Would be very interested to learn more about it.