Funds for second phase CETP project approved
India’s Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has approved the revised cost estimates of Rs135.44 crore ($34.236 million) for the second phase of a Common Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP) project at the Calcutta Leather Complex in Kolkata. The project, the Ganga Action Plan Phase-II, will be implemented on a 50:50 cost sharing basis between the Government of India and Government of West Bengal as part of the ongoing scheme of the National River Conservation Plan (NRCP) of India’s Ministry of Environment & Forests.
The CETP, which had been approved funding of Rs65 crore in 1995, will treat approximately 30 million litres of waste per day from more than 500 tanneries which have relocated from three clusters in Tangra, Tiljala and Topsia in Kolkata city, with a processing capacity of about 850 tonnes of hides/skins per day.
It will be set up to recycle chromium and allow for the safe disposal of hazardous solid wastes thus resulting in reducing the pollution of river Ganga, local groundwater and the surrounding environment. It is scheduled to be completed by March 2010.
