International Journal of Social Science : Vol. 3. No. 4, 383-389, Dec 2014

DOI No. 10.5958/2321-5771.2014.00012.X

Study on possibilities of low cost waste

water management in urban India with

special reference to Kolkata, West Bengal

Arindam Chakraborty

Assistant Director of Agriculture, Government of West Bengal, India.

Corresponding author: arindambol@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Cities in India have been in under tremendous pressure of population growth as

well as with huge production of wastewater. Wastewater treatment projects have

found vulnerable due to various constraints. In result natural bodies around the

cities have been used as disposal site hence contaminated severely. So, controlling

pollution through managing the wastewater as well as resource recycling has

gained increasing urgency in recent decades. An effort has been made in this

paper to critically examine the status of wastewater generation in urban India, its

possibility of management through recycling with a special attention to Kolkata.

It has been observed that city wastewater has been used as revenue earning

combination of agriculture and aquaculture in Kolkata. The entire system created

and developed by the local people in the area is the unique of its kind and serve

as a ‘Natural Kidney’ of the Megacity Kolkata where sustain resource recovery

system in the form of vegetable farms, fish ponds and paddy fields. Despite of

various constraints fisheries have been functioning successfully in this area with

producing employment opportunity for two persons per hectare. Therefore, the

study shows that disposal of waste water in other Indian cities as well as in other

parts of Kolkata can be used as low cost resource recovery process for future

sustenance.

Keywords : Waste Water, Pollution, Recycling, Low Cost, Kolkata

Introduction

Developing countries like India have been adopted rapid development process

to meet the immediate demands of their teeming population (Cseindia.org).

The problems are also magnified by the pattern of civilization which is heading

towards rapid urbanization. But a shortcoming in this development process and

lack of environmental foresight has led to massive ecological destruction through

pollution over the last few decades. Pollution can simply be defined as ‘using of