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WHEN SHIT HIT THE FAN, CRORES OF INVESTMENT WENT 5 FEET UNDER!!

An overview of a waterbody with trees around it - Karma Lakelands.
An overview of an outdoor area with pipes, staircase and lights seen - Karma Lakelands.

FUN FACTS AND EXPERIENCES OF OUR STP FOR WATER RECYCLING

Upon insistence of Phil Ryan, our golf course designer and Director, Karma Lakelands, and 6 years of search and follow-up with next-door neighbours, the NSG (National Security Guards), who had a huge surplus of sewage from their thousand-plus acres’ campus, we finally got them to agree to supply part of their surplus sewage to us. Significant investment went into this environmental initiative in the year 2017, as this otherwise wasted resource would finally get treated by us and used for irrigation and landscaping of our golf course.

A 400 KLD capacity treatment plant was commissioned with full fanfare, but the celebrations and good feelings on the achievement of this initiative lasted just 7 days after the opening. On this eventful night, the operator of the STP, who had recently got married, suddenly decided to make a romantic visit to his newlywed wife. Perhaps in a great hurry, while he shut down all the machines that pumped the treated water into the irrigation lake, he forgot to shut off the inlet pump that brought in the sewage from the NSG to our plant.

This ill-treated **sewage, which was flowing on gravity, first filled up the tanks in the treatment room that is located in the basement, and then started to overflow. By morning, crores of rupees of investment in equipment were drowned in 5 feet of muck. As chance would have it, the proposed alarm system meant to enable timely intervention if flooding began had been missed out on, both by the installation agency and the esteemed Project Manager!

People close to me know of my resilience—especially during the toughest of times. None of them realised how desperately passionate I was to see this water conservation effort see the light of day, and how bitterly I wept alone at my house in Goa when I heard that the plant had drowned!!

Interestingly, some 6 months later, by the time the plant was recommissioned, the NSG refused the supplies. They retracted their commitment and resumed doing what they knew best. Now, they were back to their old practice of removing sludge from their grey water. Rather than properly treating and using it, or allowing its use for irrigation purposes, they started to fill up a dirty water lake in their compound, which, to date, continues polluting the air, earth, and the underground water table.

No amount of follow-up has got them to handle their wastewater properly or supply it to us. We, as good eco-responsible citizens, have filed complaints with the environmental agencies and brought it to the notice of the Prime Minister’s Office as well, as all the wrong practices continue to happen in total disregard of his Swachh Bharat (Clean India) ideas.

We at Karma Lakelands, however, have finally been able to supplement internal generation by sourcing recycled water from the neighborhood GMDA (Gurgaon Municipal Development Authority) and keep the approx. 2,00,000 litres-a-day irrigation requirement fulfilled. All are finally happy as the key purpose of saving groundwater from extraction for irrigation use is achieved, and the water table in the region has stabilized from dropping.

At some points in the approx. 270-acre campus, it has even risen on account of rainwater harvesting that happens across the entire campus using water from landscapes and building rooftops.

Ill-treated sewage is the result of a shortcut treatment process wherein no proper treatment other than sludge removal is done. This actually makes the subsequent treatment even more complex, as the bacterial component has to be compensated for by adding cow dung instead.

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