Panaji : With wastewater from residential complexes contaminating groundwater and causing pollution, the Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB) has decided to make it compulsory for apartment complexes having 24 flats and more to have a sewage treatment plant (STP).
Presently an STP is compulsory for complexes with 50 flats and more. The pollution board decided to increase STP coverage to smaller housing complexes after an evaluation revealed a significant quantity of wastewater generated by apartment blocks.
The board also decided that real estate builders will henceforth be required to install, operate as well as maintain the plant at the housing complex for a period of three years or until the same is ready to be handed over to the housing society.
GSPCB from now on will grant the consent to establish and consent to operate approvals to builders on the condition that STPs are built and maintained by them till the consent approval can be transferred in the name of the society, and by which time the society association would be sufficiently trained to operate the said STP.
GSPCB member secretary said builders of housing complexes initially apply and obtain consents from the board. However, once the flats in the complex are sold, the builder does not maintain the STP and in some cases does not hand it to the housing society.
Due to the dispute between the two, the STP is not operated resulting in pollution and health hazard.
On September 11, this year, the High Court of Bombay at Goa, responding to a PIL, had directed GSPCB to determine whether an STP should be made obligatory for a housing complexes with minimum 24 flats or a complex with minimum 50 flats.
The board at a meeting disclosed that it arrived at the “figure of 24 flats after scientifically examining the matter”. The meeting revealed that GSPCB receives numerous complaints against housing complexes saying that the STP is not effectively operating and therefore discharging untreated effluent in the open.
Under the regulation 14.1.5 of the Goa Land Development and Building Regulations 2010, an STP is mandatory for residential complexes having 50 flats and more if the apartment complex is not connected to the existing sewer lines.
