Performance Evaluation: How Faecal Sludge Treatment Plants are Performing

April 01, 2020

In recent years, both government and private bodies have placed a great deal of emphasis on rural and urban sanitation processes to reduce health risks among the Indian population. Several types of on-site technologies such as pit latrines, septic tanks, bio-toilets adapted to public toilets, e-toilets and dry toilets have brought about significant changes in civic life.

Most of the low- and middle-income groups of the country reportedly currently rely on on-site technologies that produce tonnes of untreated faecal sludge every day. When septic tanks or pit latrines are full, the sludge collected from them is largely discharged untreated into open drains, irrigation fields, open lands or surface waters.1 Untreated faecal sludge discharged into the open environment poses serious public-health risks. The World Bank estimates that poor sanitation contributes to 1.5 million child deaths from diarrhoea every year