More than 500 million have taken a bath at the confluence of Ganga, Yamuna and the lost river Saraswati. This is more than the combined populations of USA and Russia. A sewage treatment system named Hybrid granular Sequencing Batch Reactors or hgSBR technology has been deployed at the Maha Kumbh. The plants use microbes to treat the dirty water and are often called Fecal Sludge Treatment Plants. There are 11 permanent sewage treatment plants and three temporary ones, which are catering to the huge outflow of sewage at the mela site. The technology uses bacteria-laden granules (bio-beads) based treatment as a sustainable biological treatment alternative for waste water treatment plants. It cuts down the volume of biological treatment tanks by up to 20 per cent as compared to conventional sequencing batch reactors (SBRs) It can help in accelerated bridging of the gap between sewage generation and treatment capacity in the country. It can lower the land footprint and costs by 60 per cent and 30 per cent.
