The Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) is installing sewage quality monitoring systems to get real-time information on effluent from the Tertiary Treatment Plants (TTPs) at the city’s two prime lung spaces, Lalbagh and Cubbon Park.

The monitoring system will give data on pollutants in the treated water.

Much of the treated water goes toward watering the plants in both the parks, since the board supplies just a third of the actual requirement. The parks have TTPs with extended aeration. 

The probes (sensors) are fixed at the outlet - the point where the treated water passes through the parks’ TTP systems.

Lalbagh’s TTP has 4 MLD (Million Litres Per Day) capacity, while the Cubbon Park’s TTP has 1.5 MLD capacity. 

The probes measure various parameters and offer a list of pollutants in the treated water. Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board’s (BWSSB) technical team will get the data every 15 minutes.

The parameters include pH, temperature, Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), dissolved oxygen, ammonia content and others.

No manual process

The online system would obviate the existing manual process where lab reporters collect the samples and test them –a process that takes nearly five days to complete.

The BWSSB has called the tenders and the monitoring system will be in place in some time.

The Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) had control of the Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs) and the TTPs until a few years ago before the BWSSB took over. Both Lalbagh and Cubbon Park need 1.5 MLD of water for their plants.