Mahalaxmi Municipality to set up South Asia’s first FSM plant

Lalitpur / Feb 18: The Mahalaxmi Municipality is to construct a faecal sludge management (FSM) plant at local Lamatar.

This plant would be as per the ISO 24521 Guidelines on FSM and the first of its kind in the whole of South Asia.

The plant is going to be constructed with the joint initiatives and investment of the Municipality and Kathmandu Upatyaka Khanepani Management Board.

The estimated cost of the plant is Rs 41.7 million.

According to the Municipality’s environment section chief Lav Kumar Gupta, the Board will invest Rs 35 million while the Municipality will bear the rest of the cost. He said the plant will have the capacity to manage about three trucks of faecal sludge per day.

According to him, the plant has been designed to cater from 2021 to 2025 on calculations based on projection that the municipality’s population will increase by 10 per cent every year. This plant is being constructed as per the Municipality-wide Inclusive Sanitation Plan.

The vision of the Plan is a clean, healthy and livable Mahalaxmi Municipality where its citizens, everyone and everywhere, have safely managed sustainable sanitation services. The priority action areas set out in the Plan include taking a municipality-wide approach for ensuring inclusive sanitation services for all; extending the sewer networks to the households, institutions and public places and in the absence of sewer systems, support and regulate on-site sanitation solutions.

The outcome of the Plan is stated as equitable, safe sustainable and affordable sanitation services throughout the Municipality. The impacts of the Plan are: improved health and human well being; environmental sustainability and economic productivity

This information was shared at a programme on the pilot implementation of ISO 24521 Guidelines (FSM) in Mahalaxmi Municipality, organised here today by the municipality and ENPHO. RSS