There is “no sign of an output on the disease” at the Maha Kumbh, although millions take a bath in Prayagraj, the minister of science of the country claimed it to the miracles of nuclear technology.
It is estimated that more than 500 million has now taken a bath at the confluence of Ganga, Yamuna and the Lost River Saraswati. To put this enormous number in perspective – it is more than the combined populations of the US and Russia.
“More than 50 crore -sodden have already visited and yet have no sign of disruption of hygiene or epidemic risk,” said science minister Dr. Jitendra Singh – also the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Prime Minister's office – who visited the Sangam yesterday.
Dr. Singh, a trained diabetologist and a practicing doctor, called it a “Herculean task”.
This unique performance has been made possible thanks to the use of unique Indian sewage treatment plants developed by the Bhabha Atomic Research Center (Barc), Mumbai and the Indira Gandhi Center for Atomic Research (Igcar), Kalpakkam.
Both institutions are affiliated with the Department of Atomic Energy.
A sewage treatment system with the name Hybrid Granular sequencing batch reactors or HGSBR technology is used in the Maha Kumbh.
The plants use microbes to treat the dirty water and are often called fecal sludge treatment plants. The technology has been investigated and developed by Dr. Venkat Nancharaiah, who works at Dae.
Plants set up on the banks of the river De Ganga by Stellarin Venture PVT. Ltd., Raipur, Chhattisgarh, can treat almost 1.5 Lakh liters sewerage per day on the Maha Kumbh site.
This company, based in Raipur, has license this technology in the nuclear establishment of India. Arun Kumar Tiwari, director of the company, previously worked at Barc.
The technology uses bacteria loaded granules (on bio-granules) based treatment as a sustainable biological treatment alternative for waste water treatment plants (WWTP) on activated sludge systems due to high biomass retention, superior settling and treatment properties.
The system -based system can considerably reduce costs as a result of lower footprint, lesser infrastructure and lower operational costs.
For the implementation, a new method was developed for the cultivation of bio-granules-a combination of biofilms and granules-van waste water microbes.
Apart from a superior treatment, it can lower the footprint and costs of the country by a maximum of 60 percent and 30 percent.
The benefits are enormous compared to the conventional process.
It lowers the volume of biological treatment tanks by a maximum of 20 percent compared to conventional sequencing batch reactors (SBRs).
It can help accelerate the bridging of the gap between sewerage and treatment capacity in the country.
This is a remarkable achievement since before, Kumbh's cholera and dysentery outbreaks were quite common because of the opening of stools and dirty water.
This year the government of Uttar Pradesh has made 1.5 Lakh toilets on the Mela site.
There are 11 permanent sewage treatment plants and three temporary, which focus on the enormous outflow of sewerage on the Mela site.
Clean drinking water is supplied by more than 200 automatic delivery machines.
