The ChangeMakers Investigation Desk
Bhiwandi: This week’s high-level inspection of the Manasrovar Sewage Treatment Plant by a joint BNCMC team — spanning engineering, health, sanitation, and elected ward representation — was billed as a push toward “civic upgrades.” But for a city where sewage and solid-waste infrastructure has repeatedly made headlines for the wrong reasons, the visit also reopens a set of questions that have never been satisfactorily answered: where has the money for Bhiwandi’s STP-related projects actually gone, and why do so many of them remain non-functional years after being commissioned?
A Pattern Worth Auditing
Across Maharashtra, and indeed across the country, sewage treatment infrastructure has become a familiar site of a specific kind of civic failure: plants sanctioned, funded, and inaugurated on paper — but never brought to full operational capacity, or allowed to fall into disuse soon after. Bhiwandi’s own record on this front deserves scrutiny, not because wrongdoing has been established, but precisely because it hasn’t been ruled out either.
CAG Audit Demand for BNCMC by Mr. Rais Shaikh MLA Bhiwandi East
The Kamvari River’s condition — described by residents and local leaders as a pollution-choked nullah fed by unchecked dyeing-unit effluent and domestic waste — is difficult to reconcile with the existence of treatment infrastructure that has, on paper, received public funds for years. That gap between sanctioned capacity and delivered outcome is where legitimate questions live.
The Questions That Need Answers
- Utilization certificates: For every STP or solid-waste project sanctioned in Bhiwandi over the last decade, has BNCMC published utilization certificates matching disbursed funds to physical progress?
- Operational status audit: How many STP units across the city are currently running at rated capacity, partial capacity, or not at all — and for how long has each non-operational unit stayed that way?
- Tendering history: Who were the contractors awarded STP and allied civil works, what were the completion timelines specified in those tenders, and were penalty clauses for delay ever invoked?
- Maintenance versus capital spend: Is recurring “maintenance” expenditure being sanctioned year after year for plants that residents say show no visible improvement — and if so, where is that money being applied?
- Escalation and inspection paper trail: How many prior inspections, like this week’s, have been conducted at Manasrovar and other sites, what did they find, and were any of those findings acted upon?
Why This Matters Now
With the Supreme Court having shifted river-pollution monitoring to the National Green Tribunal earlier this year — and the NGT expected to sharpen its enforcement posture on non-complying STPs nationally — Bhiwandi’s civic administration will not be able to rely on inspection photo-ops alone. Tribunal scrutiny tends to demand exactly the kind of documentation raised above: utilization certificates, capacity compliance data, and penalty enforcement records.
This publication has filed RTI queries seeking utilization and capacity data on Bhiwandi’s STP and solid-waste management projects, and will publish the responses as they arrive. Until then, this week’s inspection should be read as an opening, not a resolution — a moment for BNCMC to proactively release the financial and operational data that would put these questions to rest, rather than wait for a tribunal to compel it.
— The ChangeMakers Magazine
Have documentation — RTI responses, tender copies, audit findings, or on-record statements — relevant to Bhiwandi’s STP or solid waste management projects? Write to us on editor@thechangemakers.news
