In a first for the district, 3.6 km of a stream in Coimbatore city is getting cleaned of sewage and waste under a project completely funded by the private sector.

PSG and Sons Charities, which is celebrating its centenary year, is contributing close to ₹ 3 crore under its Corporate Environment Responsibility spending to rejuvenate the Gandhimaa Nagar stream for 3.6 km and also setting up a centre of excellence in waste management. The project is executed by Siruthuli and supported by the Coimbatore Corporation and the PSG institutions.

R.S. Krishnaswamy, member of the steering committee of Siruthuli, told The Hindu that in the first phase of the project that took off on May 21, the stream that sees 21 million litres of sewage flow a day was cleaned and bunds were standardised. Retention structures are coming up at multiple locations of the stream for algae-based sewage treatment that will be taken up on a trial basis. A team of professors from the PSG Institutions is giving technical inputs and the PSG will also do third party evaluation of the treatment. The PSG will also take care of the algae-based treatment of the sewage for one year.

Fencing will be done for 1.3 km of the 3.6 km stream and landscaping will be taken up on the bunds on both sides and vetti ver will be planted for bioremediation and bund strengthening, he said.

“We are also trying to establish a system to avoid dumping of solid waste that comes from the sewage flowing into the stream,” he said.

“This is the first time in the country that a private institution-funded project is taken up for sewage treatment. If this project succeeds, it can be replicated elsewhere,” he said.

“This stream will see a radical change in a year,” Mr. Krishnaswamy added.

The support of the Coimbatore Corporation is immense for this project as it involves a lot of cleaning of the waste and ensuring waste is not dumped on the bunds, added Vanitha Mohan, Managing Trustee of Siruthuli.

Meanwhile, the PSG is also setting up a centre of excellence for waste management at one of its campuses that will have a dedicated team of experts and a laboratory. This is expected to be inaugurated next month.