NEWS

Rivers, seas and other water bodies in urban India are going to waste, with untreated water flowing into them like never before.Nearly 90 per cent of the liquid sewage — 38,254 million litres — generated daily by cities that flows into streams, rivers and sea doesn’t met environment norms. Water should be of bathing quality to meet the standard.Water waste generated by cities, where 36 per cent of the country’s people live, is polluting over 70 per cent of the water sources, says a report released by the Central Pollution Control Board on Wednesday.India can treat 11,500 million litres of waste water every day — 31 per cent of what is generated. Poor maintenance, however, leaves only 39 per cent of it up to the environment norms, the report, which lists data from 908 cities, says. The problem is much bigger, as only 38 per cent of the population, 286 million people, in these cities has access to sanitation facilities and 78 per cent to clean drinking water. Once all get these facilities, waste water “will be our biggest environmental challenge”, board chairman S.P. Gautam said.Urban sewage was extracting a huge ecological and public health cost because of increasing water pollution, he said. Emerging cities such as Varanasi, Faridabad, Agra, Surat and Cochin have been identified as danger zones, generating 68 per cent of the total waste without any treating facility.