SEES Field Trip to Solid and Liquid Resource Management Centre and Sewage Treatment Plant, Rajgir

October 11, 2017

By Shikha Shalini, School of Ecology and Environment Studies, Class of 2019

School of Ecology and Environment Studies organised a field trip to Solid and Liquid Resource Management Centre and Sewage Treatment Plant situated at Rajgir on October 11. Dr. Somnath Bandyoadhyay, Dr. Prabhakar Sharma, Dr. Prasad Pathak, Dr. Bharath Sundaram, Dr. Aviram Sharma and Dr. Kishore Dhavala accompanied the students to the site to know the operation of the SLRM Centre and STP.

The objective of the visit was to educate the students about the surroundings of Rajgir especially how the waste is being managed in their area. First visit was to SLRM where students were introduced to root level waste collectors and segregators of both solid and liquid waste. Students got the opportunity to learn about how the waste was collected from households on a daily basis. Further, the waste was segregated as organic and inorganic waste with the help of green and red bucket respectively. The segregated waste was then brought to centre and treated accordingly. Organic waste was further used for compost and animal feed and inorganic waste sold to scrappers. The centre was funded fully by Nagar Panchayat Rajgir and staffs were formally trained by pioneer of waste management Mr. Srinivasan. Lastly, students got to know about the safety gears used by the workers like mask and gloves and were given an opportunity to interact with the staff members for any query.

The trip was then followed by a visit to Sewage Treatment plant where students were informed about the way liquid waste was treated following the process of the intermediate pumping station to primary collection added filtration to aeration tank to sediment sludge tank and lastly to follow the process of chlorination. The total capacity holding was recorded to be 10 MLD. Bihar Urban Infrastructure Development Corporation holds the authority of the plant. Finally, students learnt that the treated water was discharged in the field for agricultural usage. The trip ended after the students had a brief round of discussion on the ways to use the treated water in a more sustainable manner as water is a scarce resource.