Summing up

Surat is not like Ahmedabad and has never featured in the list of critically polluted areas as far as water pollution is concerned, though it has a high concentration of textile businesses which are pollution intensive. Going by convention, all the studies by government agencies (CPCB, 2012; CWC, 2014; CAG, 2011) have looked into the quality of water in the Tapi, which has been noted as reasonably good. However, the analysis in this book points out that in the case of Surat, the wastewater is being discharged not into the Tapi but into the numerous creeks, which are a typical character of Surat’s geography. From the creeks, the water flows to the Mindola estuary and then to the Gulf of Khambat which finally meets the Arabian sea. The water pollution goes undetected as it is camouflaged in the various creeks near the industrial areas, CETPs and STPs. Nowadays, except for the Baleshwar creek, the water quality in the creeks is not measured. The analysis of the dated data for other creeks highlights that the quality of water in the creeks receiving wastewater discharges has greatly deteriorated. The discussions in this chapter have shown the incidence of illegal industrial discharges polluting the creeks along with the legal discharge. With intense regular monitoring, there is still a chance of gathering evidence of pollution but with creeks not being monitored in the recent times, there is no chance of getting any evidence of its pollution. The large-scale industries located in Hazira in Surat, in any case, discharge directly into the Gulf.

The high level of pollution of the water bodies is quite serious as Surat city is prone to floods, having experienced two major floods and one creek flood in the last decade (Bansal, 2018). During the rainy season, high tides often inundate settlements located along several creeks. The presence of pollutants above acceptable levels in water bodies can lead to serious implications for human and livestock health. There is a need to move away from the conventional way of monitoring the water bodies by supplementing it with site-specific local requirements. The specific case of Surat highlights the fact that the conventional way of monitoring the main river in a city may not always convey the true picture of pollution at the local level.

The poor water quality in the Bhedwad, Kadodara, Koyli, Unn and Gabheni creeks clearly and amply indicates that the environment infrastructure in the form of CETPs created for the treatment of the industrial effluents, is not performing as per expected standards. The performance of the environmental infrastructure in Surat is discussed in detail in the next chapter of this book.

Notes

• 1 Urban agglomeration is a continuous urban spread constituting a town and its adjoining outgrowths, or two or more physically contiguous towns together with or without outgrowths of such towns, and with a population not less than 20,000 as per the 2001 Census.
• 2 pH is a number that expresses the acidity or alkalinity of a solution on a logarithmic scale on which seven is neutral; lower values are more acidic while higher values more alkaline.
• 3 DO is a measure of the amount of oxygen dissolved in the water body.
• 4 BOD (Bio-chemical Oxygen Demand) is the amount of dissolved oxygen needed by aerobic biological organisms to break down organic material present in a given water sample at a certain temperature over a specific time period.
• 5 TCOL is a measure of the total coliform bacteria present in the water body.
• 6 MPN stands for ‘most probable number’ and indicates that the water has been contaminated with faecal material.
• 7 The details for the heavy metal pollution in the water bodies of Surat is not available and hence not included in the analysis.
• 8 Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation.
• 9 This creek has never been monitored.

References

Bansal, N. (2018). Industrial development and challenges of water pollution in coastal areas: The case of Surat, India. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 120, 012001.

CPCB (Central pollution control Board). (2012). Polluted River Stretches in India. New Delhi: CPCB.

CPCB. (2015). Water Quality Criteria. Retrieved from https://cpcb.nic.in/water-quality -criteria/ [Accessed 26 July 2019].

CWC (Central Water Commission). (2014). Status of Trace and Toxic Metals in Indian Rivers. New Delhi: CWC.

CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General). (2011). Performance Audit of Water Pollution in India. New Delhi: CAG.

DTE (Down to Earth). (2015). Waste manager dumps it in river. 4 July.

GOI (Government of India). (2011). Census 2011. New Delhi: Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner.

Parthasarathy, R. & S. Raja. (2013). Urban—rural water nexus: The case of Gujarat. In Water in a Globalizing World: State, Markets and Civil Society in South Asia, V. Narain, C.G. Goodrich, J. Chourey, and A. Prakash (Eds.) (pp. 222—238). Routledge: Taylor and Francis.

PTI (Press Trust of India). (2011). Industries want to snap ties with GEPIL after GPCB expose. 01 December.

TOI (Times of India). (2019). Sachin GIDC units under lens for pollution. 31 March.