Experts Deliberate on Finalization of Manual on Sewerage and Sewage Treatment

The Ministry of Urban Development organized a two-day National Workshop for Finalization of Manual on Sewerage and Sewage Treatment — Part: B on Operation & Maintenance and Part: C on Management in New Delhi recently. Workshop on Part: A Engineering Manual was organized earlier.

The gigantic task of preparation the three parts of the Manual was undertaken by the Ministry of Urban Development with the assistance of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The Ministry of Urban Development constituted Expert Committees in August 2010 nominating experts from concerned central ministries, academic and research institutions, senior working engineers from some state governments and urban local bodies, and some working and retired officials. In view of the important task of preparation of the manual, the JICA constituted a JICA Study Team (JST) comprising experts from Japan for drafting the manual in three parts, Part: A on Engineering, Part: B on Operation & Maintenance and Part: C on Management. The manual drafted by the JST has also been reviewed and endorsed by the Expert Committees constituted by the Ministry.

While drafting and reviewing of the Manual, the JST and Expert Committee have kept in mind the National Urban Sanitation Policy of Government of India and prepared the guidelines considering implementation, operation & maintenance and management aspects of achieving total sanitation instead of focusing merely on underground sewerage system. The total sanitation with respect to safe management of municipal wastewater signifies its importance in achieving the objective of minimizing environmental pollution.

The two-day National Workshop organized by the Ministry in association with JICA was inaugurated by Dr. Sudhir Krishna, Secretary, Ministry of Urban Development. The inaugural session of the workshop was also attended by senior officials of the Ministry of Urban Development. Senior Managers and Engineers from Central Ministries, State Government Departments and Urban Local Bodies participated and deliberated on the subject. During the inaugural session, two documents (i) Advisory Note on Septage Management in Urban India and (ii) Guidelines for Decentralized wastewater Management were also released by the Secretary, Urban Development.

The Part A: Engineering Manual covers the latest options of technologies to be adopted in sewerage system. The three parts of the Manual on Sewerage and Sewage Treatment deliberated and discussed in detail for finalization and the documents released during the inaugural session of the workshop would certainly serve as a guiding tool for field engineers in successfully achieving the objective of the National Urban sanitation Policy of the Government.


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