UP has taken significant strides in managing its urban water and wastewater, but some cities are still showing below-average performance, says assessment by CSE

• Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), New Delhi and Department of Urban Development, Government of Uttar Pradesh jointly convene a workshop and high-level meeting on sustainable sanitation and lake management in Uttar Pradesh
• Under AMRUT, cities being transformed with infrastructure development, septage management facilities, and lake rejuvenation projects. Meeting explores how sustainable are these projects and initiatives 
• State has constructed 58 Faecal Sludge and Septage Management (FSSM) plants; but 20 cities have emerged as laggards in a review done by CSE – DoUD has taken serious note of their lapses 
• Three new reports by CSE on Uttar Pradesh released at the event 

Find the presentations and other details of this event click here 

Download the CSE reports here 

Lucknow, September 5, 2024: Uttar Pradesh, with its 762 cities, is undertaking significant initiatives to ensure that its urban spaces are water-secure in the coming years. Under the AMRUT mission, cities are being transformed with infrastructure development, septage management facilities, and lake rejuvenation projects. But is the state ensuring sustainability and optimal utilisation of these projects and initiatives? 

This is the question that was asked and discussed at a workshop and high-level meeting convened jointly here today by the New Delhi-based think tank Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and the Department of Urban Development (DoUD) of the Government of Uttar Pradesh. The event was titled ‘Towards Sustainable Sanitation and Lake Management in Uttar Pradesh’. CSE has been working closely with the Uttar Pradesh state government and its agencies to build their capacity for managing water and wastewater. 

CSE also released three new reports on Uttar Pradesh on this occasion:

• ‘Septage Management in Uttar Pradesh: Scaling Up and Sustainability Lessons’
• ‘Infusing New Life: Gaps and Challenges in Managing Lakes and Ponds and Groundwater in Four Selected AMRUT Cities of Uttar Pradesh’
• Monitoring and Evaluation of FSTPs and STP Co-treatment plants in Uttar Pradesh

(See below for brief introductions to the three reports) 

Speaking at the event, CSE director general and eminent environmentalist Sunita Narain said: “Uttar Pradesh has taken many measures towards managing its water and wastewater – for instance, the state has constructed 58 Faecal Sludge and Septage Management (FSSM) plants, around 40 of which are already operational. The state is also focusing on groundwater management and lake rejuvenation. The obvious next step in this is to ensure that these initiatives are sustainable and used optimally, that there is reuse of treated water and sludge. Today’sworkshop and high-level meeting is to discuss and understand whether this is happening, and what more can be done.” 

Besides Narain, the workshop participants – who included Nagar Nigam, Nagar Palika, Jal Kal and Jal Nigam officials and engineers -- were also addressed by Ajay Kumar Shukla, IAS, state mission director of AMRUT; Ritu Suhas, IAS, additional state mission director of SBM; and P K Srivastava, additional state mission director, AMRUT. 

Narain said: “Our water crisis is about our inability to build an affordable system of water management to supply clean water to all. What is exacerbating the problem is climate change, which is making the water stress more severe. We need to rework our current practices to ensure a water-wise and water-secure future. We must enhance our ability to hold the water, recharge it, minimise its use, and recycle and reuse every drop.” 

Speaking in the opening session, P K Srivastava said that to make cities water-secure, authorities need to work in every sphere, every sector and not just focus on things like beautification of and around waterbodies. In her address, Ritu Suhas stressed on the fact that “UP needs to understand the challenges being faced at the ground level. The FSSM projects that it has instituted in some cities, should be replicated in the rest.” 

Subrata Chakraborty, senior programme manager, water programme, CSE, points out that UP government’s Department of Urban Development has, through its SBM and AMRUT programmes, supported cities to operationalise their FSSM plants. The department has issued guidelines and advisories to the cities, organised capacity building programmes for city officials and other stakeholders, and implemented an IEC drive to generate awareness. 

The state has also issued model FSSM bye-laws, a contract document, and a guidance note on O&M costing and economics of desludging; a state-level monitoring and review system has been put in place which can rank a city’s performance on providing septage management services. 

However, a recent assessment by CSE of the 58 FSSM plants in the statehas found that 20 cities – including Lucknow – are falling behind in making their plants functional; “capacity utilisation in most of these cities ranges between a mere 0 and 5 per cent”, says Chakraborty. The state mission (AMRUT) has been duly informed about this, and it has issued directives to the authorities in these 20 cities to raise their bar. 

Listing the challenges that UP faces, Narain said: “Increase of capacity utilisation in treatment plants is a key challenge. UP has done important work in building new models for O&M -- we need to work on this and ensure financial and operational sustainability. Plants must be effective in treatment; this needs focus on operations of plants. There has to be increasedreuse of treated water and biosolids. And there should be focus on lakes and drainage so that water supply can be made more secure, and lakes can be used for discharge of treated wastewater.” 

Delivering the closing remarks at the meeting, CSE’s programme director for water, Depinder S Kapur, said: “Non-sewered sanitation systems can bring in a paradigm change in addressing the sanitation gaps in a majority of towns in India. After Odisha, Uttar Pradesh is the second state in the country with as many as 40 towns having functional septage treatment infrastructures. Operations and maintenance is the next challenge for ensuring that these plants operate and deliver results.”  

The CSE Reports

Septage Management in Uttar Pradesh - Scaling Up and Sustainability Lessons: This report highlights the interventions and transformative changes in the state’s FSSM landscape. It documents the first years of plant operationalisation,which witnessed activities including establishment of state-level policies and guidelines, capacity building initiatives, IEC efforts, and city-level actions. The report also captures valuable learnings from these interventions, revealing new challenges and emerging priorities. 

Infusing New Life: Gaps and Challenges in Managing Lakes and Ponds and Groundwater in Four Selected AMRUT Cities of Uttar Pradesh: Lakes act as anurban sponge in absorbing extreme storm events.This study and report selected four cities -- Jhansi, Banda, Rampur and Rae Bareli -- to study the challenges of lake management in urban areas of the state.It shows that to restore lakes,faecal sludge needs to be managed so that clean runoff enters the waterbodies. 

Monitoring and Evaluation of FSTPs and STP Co-treatment plants in Uttar Pradesh: CSE has conducted a study to evaluate the efficiency of 13 treatment plants in UP which treat faecal sludge and septage. Of the 13, 10 are faecal sludge treatment plants and three are STP co-treatment plants. The study provides an overview of various treatment technologies adopted by these plants, and their treatment efficiency, among other things.  

For more details, interviews etc, please contact Sukanya Nair of The CSE Media Resource Centre: sukanya.nair@cseindia.org, 8816818864.