Ghaziabad has issued the country’s first-ever bonds for a wastewater treatment plant. It has raised Rs 150 crore for the development of a cutting-edge tertiary sewage treatment plant (TSTP) under the Swachh Bharat Mission. Certified as a green bond, this is the 1st time in India that municipal bonds have been issued to fund a wastewater treatment project in compliance with international standards on environmental impact.
The bonds will fund a 40 MLD capacity TSTP that utilizes advanced membrane filtration technologies, including microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration, and reverse osmosis (RO). These cutting-edge wastewater treatment technologies work together to ensure that treated water meets the highest standards, making it suitable for reuse in industrial processes.
The wastewater treatment plant will be connected to a sprawling 95 km pipeline network, delivering treated water to over 1,400 industrial units across Ghaziabad. The plant ensures that wastewater no longer goes to waste but is instead transformed into a valuable resource that supports the city’s industrial sector, reducing dependency on freshwater sources.
It is being developed under the Public-Private Hybrid Annuity Model (PPP-HAM), with 40 percent municipal funding. This public-private partnership approach helped streamline the project’s implementation while ensuring financial discipline.
The municipality already contracted over 800 firms to supply 9.5 MLD of tertiary-treated water.
