- The electric crematorium has been out of order for two years. Funds for repairing key parts were lacking and now the bricks from the inside have been stolen. The crematorium had been socially acceptable and was much used. People want to use it since it costs very little to cremate the dead in this respectable and safe way.
- The GAP moved the Assi River to a place upstream where few people can see that raw sewage from thousands of homes from Assi Nalla falls freely into Ganga at the upstream side of the city of Varanasi. All this sewage flows into the river before the drinking water for the city is taken out of Ganga.
- Costing Rs 25 crore, Dinapur Sewage Treatment Plant was
constructed under GAP Phase One. Testing of the effluent coming
from the treatment plant shows that the plant is not effective in
reducing BOD, suspended solids, or fecal coliform. The fecal
coliform is often as high as 10 million mpn/100ml. This after
treatment! Dinapur was supposed to generate enough electricity to
run itself but the generators have been disassembled twice for
repairs. Other problems of Dinapur are:
- huge maintenance costs (Rs three crore annually)
- frequent power outages
- poorly trained maintenance and running staff
- difficulty in getting replacement parts
- the process of determining which technology to employ was not open to input from the community. This continues until this day when Phase II is being decided without any transparency of process or public disclosure. Given the poor performance of UP Jal Nigam in the past, the public has no reason to hope for better performance in Phase II. Indeed the 225-page confidential report evaluating the GAP is almost laughable in its conclusions. There is no evidence presented of sound field studies and no data on fecal coliform counts.
Manushi, Issue 97
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