Sonia Vihar Plant in Delhi: Catering to more than 3.5 million citizens everyday

Designed and built by SUEZ in 2004, this 635 MLD capacity plant was the largest Single Phase Plant in India, complete with wastewater recycling, supplying water to 3.5 million people in New Delhi. It has the Group’s flagship products like pulsating type sludge blanket clarifiers and high rate Aquazur®V filters. The plant is being continuously operated and maintained by SUEZ since 2006.

Sonia Vihar WTP receives raw water from two different sources:  River Ganges & River Yamuna. There are significant fluctuations in the raw Water Quality with turbidity, ranging from 25 – 8,000 NTU, especially in the monsoon season.

To manage the high turbidity and raw water quality variations from two different sources, a robust three-stage treatment line were adopted -

• Three pre-settling tanks used for pre-treatment of raw water with high turbidity peaks during the monsoons.
  
• Two pumping stations, each providing 100% of needs in raw water.
  
• Efficient pre-treatment using Turbocirculator (high flow-rate clarification units). Unlike conventional clariflocculation units, this innovative product utilizes a specially designed central flocculation turbine, which utilizes an internal sludge recycle to impact a high rise rate and thus enable efficiency and compactness.
  
• Settling using the Pulsator, a flexible and space-saving system: savings in the use of chemicals and low energy consumption. The effectiveness of sludge bed flocculation and the perfect hydraulic design of the Pulsator enable a better quality of settled water to be obtained.
  
• 22 Aquazur V filters: These robust high-rate filters with high operational flexibility and low operating cost provide an excellent quality of treated water.
  
• The complete impurities/dirt in the raw water, removed in the treatment plant, are extracted in the form of a sludge. This sludge is first thickened with four units of specially designed thickness, and then, mechanically dewatered on centrifuges to produce an easily transportable cake sludge.
  
  

Designing, constructing, and operating advanced technologies on such a mega scale require specific skill sets, innovation and extensive experience, DJB’s rightful decision to choose SUEZ to design, build and operate the plant for more than 12 years has been validated beyond doubt by the successful operation of the plant since 2006, without any operational problems and supplying safe drinking water every single day to the citizens of Delhi.