Public Health Engineering Department

Event-Charalkhali

POND BASED ULTRAFILTRATION BY USE OF SOLAR ENERGY AT SUNDERBANS CHARALKHALI PANCHAYAT, HINGALGANJ BLOCK OF NORTH 24 PARGANAS

Location: Charalkhali Gram Panchayat of Hingalganj block of North 24 Parganas district in Sundarbans
Beneficiaries: Habitant of Charalkhali village along with BSF personnel deployed at Bangladesh border Problems of Existing Sources of drinking water

Key Features of the Unit

The entire plant runs on solar energy and is a standalone unit.
The system is capable of running on grid power also, as a fall back measure/enhanced productivity.
It has capacity to purify the pond water into potable drinking water @ 2 m3/hr or up to 10 KLD on solar energy. This can be further enhanced by use of Grid Power.
The system can serve more than 1000-1200 persons for their cooking & drinking water needs.

The Indian part of Sundarban region is located in the state of West Bengal occupying the lowest part of the Ganga delta which has been fragmented by various distributaries. Sundarban region is composed of 102 islands of which 48 are still under the cover of forest and rest of the 54 have already been deforested with subsequent conversion to arable land studded with human settlements, orchards and tanks. The rivers and creeks of Sundarban region are mostly tidal and water is saline with high TDS value. The groundwater of Sundarban region is also having high TDS value in general with increased level of Chloride.

In the process of assessing suitable technologies to provide drinking water in saline zones of Sundarban it has been decided to use Solar Power based Ultra filtration technology to harness drinking water from Sweet Water Ponds in this area as an alternative solution.

A pond at Charalkhali village of Hingalgunj block in North 24 Parganas has been selected to set up a Pilot plant ( another one to be piloted in South 24 Parganas district). Accordingly the work has been taken up. This plant is capable of producing 10,000 litre of potable water in a day by using solar power. The capacity may be further boosted upto 20,000 litre per day if grid power is used.

After completion of one year O & M the plant will be handed over to the VWSC (Village Water and Sanitation Committee).

Operation & maintenance

The operation & maintenance of the Ultra Filtration Plant is rather simple. The operation of the Plant are mostly automated and do not require any manual intervention.