When Shit Hit the Fan, Crores of Investment Went 5 Feet Under !!

Upon insistence of Phil Ryan, our golf course designer and Director Karma Lakelands & six years of search and follow-up with next door neighbors, 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 400KLD Capacity treatment plant was commissioned with full fanfare, but the celebrations and good feeling on achievement of this initiative lasted just seven 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 newly-wedded wife. Perhaps in a great hurry, while he did 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, that was flowing on gravity, first filled up the tanks in the treatment room that is located in the basement, and then started to over-flow. By morning, crores of rupees of investment in equipment, was drowned in five feet of muck. As chance would have it, the proposed alarm system meant to enable timely intervention, if flooding began, had been missed out - both by the installation Agency as well as the esteemed Project Manager! People close to me know of my resilience - especially during the toughest of times. None of them realized 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 six months later, by the time the plant was recommissioned, the NSG refused the supplies. They retracted on their commitment and resumed to do 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 purpose, they started to fill up a dirty water lake in their compound which to date continues polluting the air, earth and the water-table underground. No amount of follow-up has got them to handle their waste water properly or supply it to us. We, as good eco-responsible citizens, have filed complaints to 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 re-cycled water from the neighborhood GMDA (Gurgaon Municipal Development Authority) and keep the approx. 200,000 Litres a day irrigation requirement fulfilled. All are finally happy as the key purpose of saving ground water from extraction for use in irrigation is saved and the water-table in the region has stabilized from dropping. At some points in the approx. 300 acres campus, it has even risen up on account of rainwater harvesting that happens in the entire campus using water from landscapes and building roof tops. ** Ill treated Sewage is as a result of a shortcut process of treatment 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 by adding cow dung instead.