Preliminary findings of Richard Dasher from Stanford University’s US-Asia Technology Management Center & Amit Kapoor from Institute for Competitiveness, India, presented at govt. event.
New Delhi: Providing clean toilets, managing solid waste and faecal sludge at the recently concluded Maha Kumbh was a huge challenge that was perfectly managed by the authorities, state the preliminary findings of a study conducted by American and Indian researchers.
Richard Dasher, director at Stanford University’s US-Asia Technology Management Center (US-ATMC), and Amit Kapoor, professor and chair at the Institute for Competitiveness, India, carried out a study on the management of Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) at Prayagraj’s Maha Kumbh Mela.
This year, over 65 crore people participated in the Maha Kumbh, which was organised on the banks of the Ganga. Nearly 4,000 hectares of reclaimed land along the river was converted into a transient city for the 45-days period. Kapoor, one of the study’s principal investigators, along with a team of 10 people assessed various aspects of water and sanitation management for over a month.
The preliminary findings of the study were presented Wednesday at the 12th Regional 3R and Circular Economy Forum in Asia and the Pacific, organised by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs in Jaipur.
Kapoor said that keeping the massive area clean, maintaining 1.5 lakh toilets and ensuring timely disposal of faecal sludge was a massive task. The state government had deployed around 15,000 sanitation workers.
He added, “Over 1.5 crore people were defecating daily. Providing clean toilets was a huge challenge, but was 99.9 percent perfectly managed. As per the process put in place by the authority, each toilet was to be cleaned every 20 minutes. They were able to do it; it was being done as clockwork. We looked at 10,000-odd toilets in different sectors. The real heroes of this festival are the sanitation workers.”
The only thing missing in the toilets, Kapoor said, were soap dispensers.
As for the management of faecal sludge, Kapoor said, it was “perfectly managed” and processed at the temporary faecal sludge management plants. “They were able to manage the faecal sludge. It (the arrangement) was 99.9 percent perfect. In 45 days, we only saw some faecal sludge outside just once, it was on Mauni Amavasya,” he said.
A total of 10 sewerage treatment plants and three faecal sludge treatment plants were set up for the event.
Referring to arrangements made this time, Kapoor said there was a huge difference in the arrangements as compared to the last Kumbh organised in the city in 2012. “There was a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report on the management of Kumbh in 2012. If you look at that (numbers), the difference is chalk and cheese in terms of implementing things,” he said at the Jaipur conference.
‘Cleaner than tap water’
The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) had said last month that it found high levels of faecal coliform in the Sangam waters where lakhs of people took the holy dip each day of the Maha Kumbh.
However, the study found the river water to be “as clean as tap water”, at some locations.
Referring to the CPCB’s report, Kapoor said, “Our data shows that the water was cleaner in the river Ganga, at some locations, than the tap water. This was on days when fewer people took a dip in the river.”
The team also carried out an assessment of the drinking water facilities at the Maha Kumbh and found that water quality was “nearly perfect”.
According to the findings, out of 150 water tap samples tested between 1 and 24 February, 109 water taps (73 percent) met the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) for potable water standards of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) is less than 500.
“The water quality at most places was nearly perfect. There were 60 taps where we found that the water was over-filtered. We found only one water tap where the water quality or TDS was worse than 500,” said Kapoor.
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