Feature: China-funded green sewage treatment plant boon for millions in Dhaka

DHAKA, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) -- For millions of dwellers in Aftab Nagar area on the eastern side of the Bangladeshi capital, it is like a dream come true with a China-funded green sewage treatment plant, the largest in South Asia, is in operation since April.

On Sunday, Bangladeshi Minister of Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives Tazul Islam and Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Li Jiming jointly inspected the Dasherkandi Sewage Treatment Plant project, which can provide modern sewerage service to about five million people in Dhaka.

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the groundbreaking of the plant construction project in August 2018. It took HydroChina Corporation, the contractor, less than four years to complete the project, which features green technology that aims to minimize human impact on the natural environment.

"It is my pleasure to get the chance to visit this project again," the minister told Xinhua while expressing his government's deep satisfaction with the timely completion of such an enormous project.

He considered the project to be of special significance for the friendship between China and Bangladesh, and expressed his sincere gratitude to the Chinese engineers, managers and technicians for their hard work.

Liu Zhenhua, economic and commercial counselor of the Chinese Embassy in Dhaka, Le Liwen, cultural counselor of the embassy, and Taqsem A Khan, managing director of Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (WASA), accompanied the inspection.

Historically, Bangladesh and China are maintaining very friendly relations and many projects have been implemented here with China's finance, technical support and know-how, said the minister.

He noted that many new projects are being implemented in various sectors where Chinese companies are participating.

In the course of the inspection, the Chinese Embassy in Dhaka said in a Facebook post, both sides expressed recognition and praise for the team and the completion and operation of the project, and expected the Chinese and Bangladeshi governments and enterprises to continue deepening cooperation in the future.

He Li, design manager from PowerChina Chengdu Engineering Corporation Limited, the design institute for the project, had earlier said the design for Dasherkandi Sewage Treatment Plant was based on China's sewage discharge standard.

"This is an environmentally-friendly and green project. After the wastewater is treated at the sewage treatment plant, some of this effluent water is further processed with a filter to produce reclaimed water for landscaping and cleaning purposes to create a good environment for the local ecosystem," he said.

The wastewater treatment process includes pre-treatment, AAO, secondary sedimentation tank, and UV disinfection, he said. The accumulated sludge is further processed through dewatering, spray drying, and incineration, and the slag produced can be further used for the production of fertilizer, brick and cement, which can significantly save sludge disposal land that is very precious in Bangladesh.

The project director engineer, Md Mohosain Ali Miah from Dhaka WASA, the executing agency of the project funded by the Export-Import Bank of China, earlier told Xinhua that the project includes a sewage lifting station, sewage conveyance pipeline, and a sewage treatment plant with a sewage treatment capacity of 500,000 cubic meters per day.